Swine FluJust another Totalaccessnet.com Blogs weblog

Have you been watching the news and/or read your daily broadsheets at all

recently?  If so, you’ve probably heard the term “Swine Flu” bouncing

around a lot.  While you are in the pigs fair or your hog race backyard and

you were ever unlucky enough to be sneezed on by a sick pig, would you

catch its flu? Not necessarily — it takes more than simply breathing in a

pig’s germs (just like kissing his messy and slimy nose) for you to get

sick. 

While most people come down with the normal human flu at some point, it’s

not really a danger to anyone but the very young (from 0 month to 7 years

old) and the very old (from 60 to 90 years old).  Fortunately, the human

immune system is there to recognize and neutralize the effects of the

virus.  Each year, the virus mutates just slightly and most of the

population is once again susceptible to the disease.  This is why a new

vaccine must be created regularly to reflect the most recent influenza

mutants out in the environment. 

When the human flu virus mutates its external proteins, the body’s defenses

still recognize them and eventually mount a response (the period of

sickness occurs while the body is developing that response).  If this

failed to happen, you would eventually succumb to the virus and you will

die.

If a people’s immune system might not immediately stop a new human

influenza infection, it does recognize that new mutant and begin building a

response.  Avian and swine peplomers, on the other hand, are not easily

recognized by the human system because our race did not include pressure

from those particular viruses.  The animal influenza has been able to

mutate enough to cross the species bridge and infect humans as well as

humans we have come into a close contact with the animals (e.g. as a hog

racer, we care for them and eventually sold out to the market for more

extra income) that carry these viruses.

In the past this would not have been a worldwide epidemic.  An infected

village might just die out in isolation (the nearest hospital was more than

10 miles away from the village).  Now it’s different: if a traveler can

become infected from a hog race backyard in one region and fly thousands of

miles to another, long before they experience symptoms of possible flu.

So what’s the fall away message from all of this? Can we do anything?  Well

as individuals it’s wise to go through the same sanitary practices as we

might during flu season.  We must be aware if our pigs catch flu during the

season so that we put them instantly in a quarantine area that no other

individual will take care of your pigs without protective suits.  And

traveling to places which have reported Swine Flu cases probably isn’t a

great idea. 

There are people as you observe in different agencies and they have spent

their whole lives preparing for just these kinds of epidemics and they are

currently working very hard to provide the public with the best information

and advice about the Swine Flu.

They are only there waiting for your attention and willingness to diagnose

if you suspected yourself a possible Swine Flu virus.  They are there to

help you live longer.