Swine Flu: Possible Pandemic

Its currently in the news and is causing quite a hysteria in the country especially in the pig farms and at the public market that the Swine Flu might probably be in the country. Rest assured that the country has done proper precautions to prevent the said disease from getting into the country.

Well, not literally the country but the people who are responsible for maintaining the health of the citizens. Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap ordered a ban on pork imports from the United States and Mexico. Dr. Eric Tayag, head of the National Epidemiology Center said that “Right now, there is still no case of swine flu in the country.” These statements were taken from Inquirer.net (You can look that up if you’d like.)

On the other hand, the chief of the Bureau of Quarantine said that thermal scanning at Internation Airports has been beefed up for passengers from Mexico, the United States and Canada. “Our thermal scanners have 100 percent effectivity so you can be sure that passengers with fever will be detected – EarthTimes 

I’ve check some sources and was a bit shocked on how people are so much on high alert for this disease. Looking up on history, there have been a lot of major pandemics occured in the past years. Such as that of the S.A.R.S. and anthrax. That’s a reason enough why they’ve been on high alert.

But on how much are people been taking such precautions? I went over to one of my favorite online forums to check if there are related topics and there was one. There was a very interesting post by one of the members saying that

New strains get discovered every year a good host of them resistant to existing antivirals, threatening to be the next Spanish Flu and wiping out a good dose of humanity (ask Hong Kong on how frequently this happens). It’s just that until the media starts paying attention, they go by unnoticed. – redkinoko

So true, it is sometimes late for people who had got the disease before treatment is given to them. Swine flu is currently known to be affecting a thousand at Mexico and there is the probably that there are cases in United States, New Zealand and France. Asia is now on high alert of this disease and hopes that it wont become a pandemic.

Only way for citizens to prevent this is to just keep themselves clean through proper hand washing. Yeah! Hand washing is the universal precaution as what has been taught to us nurses over and over again and it is a fact. While your outside your home, don’t eat anything without using some alcohol or wash your hands. At least, it prevents most communicable diseases.

(Art by malinamnam of DeviantArt)