Are We Witnessing The Birth Of A Pandemic?

By ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY – The schools and museums are closed. Sold-out games between Mexico’s most popular soccer teams are being played in empty stadiums. Health workers are ordering sickly passengers off subways and buses. And while bars and nightclubs filled up as usual, even some teenagers were dancing with surgical masks on.

Across this overcrowded capital of 20 million people, Mexicans are reacting with fatalism and confusion, anger and mounting fear at the idea that their city may be ground zero for a global epidemic of a new kind of flu — a strange mix of human, pig and bird viruses that has epidemiologists deeply concerned.

Tests show 20 people in Mexico have died of the new swine flu strain, and that 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain. The caseload of those sickened has grown to 1,004 nationwide, Mexico’s Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said. MUCH MORE

For those who monitor these types of situations, note how fast surgical face masks were swept off the shelves in Mexico City pharmacies. If you’re concerned that we really do face the possibility of another deadly pandemic, now is the time to buy your supplies, not after panic sets in and the shelves in our own pharmacies go bare. Every home should have their own “Pandemic Plan.” If it reaches the severity level in the United States where it closes our schools, the best safeguard against contamination is to stay home. Our family plan is to rely on our food storage, and for only one individual to leave the house to purchase essential goods - always wearing a surgical mask- and then showering and washing his/her clothes when they return home. What is decidedly different in this flu outbreak is that the safest person to send shopping may be the eldest in the home, as the virus tends to hit those who are young and healthy.

Is it time to panic? Absolutely not! We have had flu pandemics throughout our history, and I believe the modern world is much better suited to surviving a pandemic than our forefathers. (Industrialized countries. I shudder to think how Third World countries will fare during a serious pandemic.) We know the best way to limit the spread of any human to human transmission is by cutting-off as much contact with others as possible - and when contact does become necessary, to protect ourselves with appropriate safeguards when we have to go out in the public.

People who live in areas prone to serious earthquakes usually have family planning in case an event presents itself, and the same is true with those who live in areas prone to tornadoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters. With sanitation losing ground in some of the world’s most populous cities and the potential for disaster, it is common sense that families prepare themselves for what appears to be eventually inevitable, a serious flu pandemic - and if we are properly prepared, the damage to our families and social structure should be minimized.

William Cormier