WHO declares pandemic

[Coach McGuirk]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...0gOYQD98OH0U00

Still don't understand the hoopla, but I am no doctor.

WHO reported 27,737 cases including 141 deaths

[scottie]

A good friend of mine is a family practitioner. He told me two weeks ago that if you have the flu, swine flu is better/less risky to have than either influenza A or B. If that's true (can any docs here comment on that?), then why is WHO declaring a pandemic for swine flu? (Is there a standing/permanent pandemic for influenza A and B? and that's why we never really hear about it?)

[TheAzzuri]

Pandemics have less to do with severity of the disease itself and more to do with geography.

[TheAzzuri]

A good friend of mine is a family practitioner. He told me two weeks ago that if you have the flu, swine flu is better/less risky to have than either influenza A or B. If that's true (can any docs here comment on that?), then why is WHO declaring a pandemic for swine flu? (Is there a standing/permanent pandemic for influenza A and B? and that's why we never really hear about it?)

While the swine flu in its current form is not extremely worrisome, there is the concern that it has paved the way for a more harmful variant of the disease to come back through and do some serious damage. As Lebowski (or someone else) pointed out, the Spanish flu (also H1N1) that killed off so many people in 1918-1919 followed that pattern.

Much of the worry right now has to do with would *could* happen, not with what is happening or what will happen in the immediate future.