1. What is an epidemic?
An epidemic occurs when a new desease appears in a certain region to the human population of that region, in a certain period of time.
2. What is a pandemic?
It's a desease that spreads to a large region, it could be a continent, rp even a world wide
3. What is an infectious disease?
It's a desease resulting for a pathogenic microbial agents, including viruses, bacterias, parasites
4. What is a virus?
Is a microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a hostcell.Viruses affects all types of cellular life.
5. What makes the H1N1 virus a "novel" or "new" virus?
That is a mutation of the same virus of the flue with another kind of flue, like the human flue whith the bird flue.
6. How do viruses mutate?
A virus mutate depending on the conditios it is, beacuse the virus are proteins and have ADN or RNA that they use to reproduce in a host cell, when the virus reproduce in the host cell it recives part of the genetic information of the cell and it mutates with that information.
7. What does it mean that this virus has "parts" from other known swine flus, human flus and American bird flus?
That the virus is a mutation of different kind of virus of the same tipe but with different genetic information
8. How does that process happen?
"Sometimes during the process of copying the RNA or DNA of the virus, small errors (substitutions in nucleotide base pairs) occur in the copy. These errors are replicated into subsequent copies. If the change isn't fatal to the virus and causes it to stop replicating, then the virus has resulted in a mutation. If that mutation results in a changed protein that enables the virus to survive, infect or replicate better the virus will become more infectious. "
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-04/954626251.Vi.r.html
9. How is the flu vaccine created?
They take the virus and look the way to make it stable and not infetious so our organism can create anty bodies to attack the original virus.
10. Why are some viruses transmittable from human to human while others are not (avian flu)?
Because some viruses are very vulnerable to the temperatures so when they are in the organism and it is to hot or to cold for it, it won't reproduce
11. How does Tamiflu work?
"works by binding to the neuraminidase on the surface of the virus particles and stopping it from working. When the neuraminidase helper is blocked in this way, it means that newly formed viral particles cannot be released from the infected cells. This prevents the flu virus from spreading and infecting other cells."
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/100004852.html
12. Scientists worry that H1N1 might become resistant to Tamiflu. How might that happen?
It can happen because some one that is not infected with the virus and he takes the medicine and then he gets sick with the virus of influenza, the virus can mutate and be resistace to the medicine because it was taken before the virus attack the organism.
II.-
1. What is the most predictable thing about influenza?
That is a very infectious desease that is transmited form person to person, is not a very lethal desease but it's dangerous because it affects to a big number of the population.
2. How many people have died in Mexico?
29 people died because of the virus of influenza
3. Name 3 countries where swine flu has been confirmed in the last three days.
Canada, France, Spain.
4. What are the symptoms of the swine flu?
Cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, heathache,,chills, fatige
5. When was the outbreak of the Spanish flu?
March 1918 to June 19206.
6-What percentage of the world population died of influenza then?
20 to 40million people were killed worldwide
7. Why was there an emergency vaccination program in 1976?
It started on January 27, 1976, when a small outbreak of mild respiratory illness occurred at the Fort Dix Army Base in New Jersey. Throat cultures taken from sick soldiers grew out what laboratorians at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified as a “swine-like flu virus which was believed to have been inactive in the human population since 1930 with the exception of a handful of cases of swine-to-person transmission.
8. Name a few actions the Mexican government has done to curb the spread of swine flu.
the government of Mexico decided to close all public places such as restaurants, cinemas, malls. Closing all events and distributed moueth mask to avoid contagious.
9. What were the consequences for Mexico and Mexicans due to the actions taken by the government?
industry of restaurants, cinemas and entertainment will be hard hit financially
10. What industries were particularly hard hit?
The tourism, entertaiment industries(cinemas,clubs,etc.)
III.-
1. Mexico has shut down schools and other public spaces; do you think that was the correct thing to do? Why or why not?
I think it was the perfect decition because shutting down the schools you can prevent a los of infections and the spread of the desease protectinh the population
2. More people die from the regular flu then from swine flu, why do you think this became a big news story?
Because it's a new virus that is very infectious and difficult to neutralize
3. Why did people stop visiting Mexico? Why have Mexicans been discriminated? Do you think the fear of the disease is justified?
Because the people was afraid of been infected if they visit mexico, I think that they were discriminated because the people was bad informated or not informed at all of how the virus spreads, and I think this reactions can't be justified at any circunstances because now you can be informed of every thing by the T.V, newspaper, etc.
4. What questions about individual and human rights does preventing the spread of flu raise?
