Swine Flu - H1N1 Influenza A
Information
Travel pans cancelled, face masks being worn, schools
closed, alert levels raised and wall to wall media
coverage - the reaction to Swine Flu or H1N1 Influenza
A was swift and immediate in the last week of April
2009.
Pandemic is a word were have heard repeatedly since
the SARS outbreak in 2002 and more recently in
relation to Bird Flu. As this article is being
written there are warnings from the WHO that a
pandemic is imminent. Whether H1N1 Influenza A evolves
into a full blown pandemic and what the toll may be in
illness, and loss of life - only time will tell.
Since there is a potential for pandemic, reliable
information becomes important. This month we
feature three sites and other resources for
information about Swine Flu/ H1N1 Influenza A.
World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/
 |
World Health Organization H1N1 Influenza A
homepage. |
The World Health Organization (WHO) is the
directing and coordinating authority for health within
the United Nations system and it is coordinating the
global response to H1N1 Influenza A.
They maintain a section of their website for Swine Flu
and it contains a lot of information in the form of Situation
Updates with updated bulletins about the status of
H1N1 Influenza A around the world. There is a
section of Guidance, with offers documents to assess a
potential outbreak, you can find out the current phase
of alert as well as a guise to the different phases,
and they also have a Media Centre, with the lasted
media releases.
This site is constantly updated. With a little
digging you can find out a lot of information that
will help in understanding the situation at any
time. The WHO site also offers an RSS feed and
video.
PandemicFlu.gov
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/
 |
PandemicFlu.gov homepage. |
This site is a clearing house of
information to U.S. Government swine, avian and
pandemic flu information. It culls information
from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
The White House, The U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) as well as other agencies.
There are continual updates about H1N1 Influenza A if
the form of news, and a U.S. map to track flu
cases. The site offers sections on planning and
preparing for a pandemic, monitoring outbreaks, tests,
vaccines and medicines, and regional information.
PandemicFlu.gov
utilizes social media tools like a news widget with
the latest headlines that you can also get and share,
they have an RSS feed as well as email alerts.
The site has a separate Twitter page, with continual
updates and links to new information. Like all
Twitter sites you can "follow" them.
They also offer video and webcasts.
Reuters Swine Flu - Influenza A
http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/swineflu
BBC News Special Reports Swine Flu
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/2009/swine_flu/default.stm
 |
 |
Reuters Swine Flu - Influenza A news portal. |
BBC Swine Flu News Portal. |
Since we have featured two government operated websites our
final sites are two media web portals with dedicated news about H1N1
Influenza A, Reuters and the BBC.
Reuters coverage is global, it
includes text as well as video and there is a map to
track H1N1 Influenza A cases worldwide. The Reuters
page is continually updated and comprehensive and
you have to do a lot of clicking to find all of the
contents contained in this portal. News stories
are constantly updated and changed so you could come
back in find all news stories - remember, Reuters main
business is providing news content to newspapers, TV
and radio so they produce a lot of news especially
during a crisis.
Keep in mind, Reuters is only one news site and only
offers reports from Reuters reporters and their
stringers so you may want to investigate other news
sources. Reuters offers a general health RSS
feed that includes Swine Flu stories, in order to
access the feed you have to click on the general RSS
icon which takes you to a page of choices and you can
select the "Health News" feed and subscribe
- it's not the easiest way to get feeds and they
currently do not have a feed dedicated to H1N1.
The BBC has established a news portal of its own for
Swine Flu. Similar to Reuters the BBC includes
text stories as well as video and a map to track the
outbreak. It has global coverage, includes
stories from BBC reporters, and some good explanatory
articles. There are also articles by UK
physicians and medical experts, however, you have to
click-through to the various Swine Flu sections to
find those. Like the Reuters site, the more you
click the more your find.
Unlike Reuters the BBC has a dedicated RSS feed for
Swine Flu with a subscription icon right on the home
page of their portal. There is also a helpful
set of Illustrations and text that explains each phase
of the WHO pandemic alert and how they determine the
move from phase 1 to phase 6.
The BBC Swine Flu portal is continually updated like
Reuters. Both sites utilize Twitter for general
news coverage: Reuters
BBC,
however, they are 'Tweeting' general news stories that
also include stories on H1N1 and they are in a
'mobile' format.
So far there are only a few news organizations that
have created a dedicated page for H1N1 Influenza A and
Reuters and the BBC are fairly comprehensive and a good
example of aggregating current stories and up-to-date
information on a portal
page. Yahoo! News, and Google News will also
give you links to the latest stories from a host of
news organizations around the world and you can create
email alerts for Swine Flu. Our own H1N1
resources page has links to similar pages for
other news portals.
Whether this turns into a major global pandemic, or if
H1N1 Influenza A is contained or simply runs its
course - access to information from a variety of
sources will allow you to make informed decisions.
Further Information:
What is Swine Influenza?
Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory
disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus
that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in
pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of
illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine
influenza viruses may circulate among swine
throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur
during the late fall and winter months similar to
outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus
(an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first
isolated from a pig in 1930.
How many swine flu viruses are there?
Like all influenza viruses, swine flu viruses
change constantly. Pigs can be infected by avian
influenza and human influenza viruses as well as
swine influenza viruses. When influenza viruses
from different species infect pigs, the viruses
can reassort (i.e. swap genes) and new viruses
that are a mix of swine, human and/or avian
influenza viruses can emerge. Over the years,
different variations of swine flu viruses have
emerged. At this time, there are four main
influenza type A virus subtypes that have been
isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1.
However, most of the recently isolated influenza
viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses.
*Source: CDC
|
|
|
Disclaimer:
Reference in this web site to any specific
organizations, commercial products, process, service,
manufacturer, or company does not constitute its
endorsement or recommendation by Northeast Center for
Special Care.
Back
|
