"INTERNAL MEDICINE"

Swine flu is now a days the most serious concern of people all over the world.Death toll has raised to 36000 per season according to US center for disease control and prevention.
The questions and answers related to this topic are evolving in minds these days which are given below:

When will we have Swine Flu vaccine?
CDC,FDA and NIH have started work on making vaccine since April 24 and this vaccine is basically based on fertilized Hen egg cells.This has been told by FDA to Lisa stark.Although few sources have said that "cell culture " based vaccines could short the production times.
According to WHO it will take 5 to 6 months.

Should i be taking an antiviral medication such as tamiflu or relenza in order to control Swine Flu?
According to infectious disease experts the non judicious use of ani viral medications for swine flu is not justified because of following reasons:
1.The disease has not spread much outside mexico and if so the disease is very much mild outside mexico so antivirals are not to be used.

2.Moreover the non judicious use of anti viral therapy will result in resistance against this medication.

People who should be taking antivirals are;
1.Diseased
2.Immunocompromised
3.High risk-- Contacts

Tamiflu and Relenza acts by decreasing the reproduction of flu virus.These drugs decreases the duration of illnes symptoms by one or one and a half day.

Q.I have suffered from Flu this year ,will the vaccine protect me from swine flu now?

It is highly unlikely that this vaccine will protect you from the disease if you have suffered in 2008 -09, because the swine flu virus is quite different from the virus strains contained in the vaccine.So health officials have decided to include the swine flu vaccine in next year programme and this vaccine will be specifically for that strain.

Q.What is the difference between an epidemic,pandemic and endemic?
1.Epidemic is a spread of disease in a discrete geographic locality
2.Endemic is an already prevailing disease in a locality.
3.Pandemic is a disease spreading in lots of geographic localities --may be including the whole world.

Q.What is swine flu?

Swine flu is basically a virus type H1N1 which is contained by pigs.Now a days a variation of H1N1 is also prevailing which is of main concern among health officials.Usually this virus is not transmitted directly to the humans from pigs but this new variation is thought to be transmitted directly.



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