About Swine Flu
Swine flu has spread across the world since emerging in Mexico and is now officially the first flu pandemic for 40 years. Experts fear millions of people will be infected.
What is swine flu and what are the symptoms?
Swine flu is a respiratory disease, caused by a strain of the influenza type A virus known as H1N1.
H1N1 is the same strain which causes seasonal outbreaks of flu in humans on a regular basis.
But this latest version of H1N1 is different: it contains genetic material that is typically found in strains of the virus that affect humans, birds and swine.
Although the strain may have originated in pigs, it is now a wholly human disease.
It can be spread from person to person by coughing and sneezing.
Symptoms of swine flu in humans appear to be similar to those produced by standard, seasonal flu.
A fever – which is a temperature of 38ºC (100.4ºF) – is the key symptom, combined with other complaints which may include a cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and aching limbs. Some people with the virus have also reported nausea and diarrhoea.
As with normal flu, the severity of symptoms will depend on treatment and the individual. Many people have only suffered mildly and have begun to recover within a week.
People are most infectious soon after they develop symptoms, but they cease to be a risk once those symptoms have disappeared. The incubation period may be as little as two days.
Apparently healthy people are dying from the virus. Does that means it is getting worse?
Experts say this does not change anything, and that if anything it is surprising that it has taken this long in the UK for someone without underlying health problems to die.
Apparently healthy people can die of any flu-related virus if it causes complications such as pneumonia so these latest deaths do not give any extra cause for concern.
Indeed, so far, many people who have developed symptoms of infection have not needed drugs to make a full recovery, according to the WHO.
Flu expert Professor Peter Openshaw, of Imperial College London, says about one in every three people who become infected will not realise they have had swine flu because they will have had no or only very few symptoms.
“About 98% of people who get infected will recover fully without any hospital treatment so I think the public needs to be reassured.”
The real fear is that the strain will mutate and become more virulent which would pose a greater threat. This has been the feature of previous flu pandemics.
But this has not yet happened – and in any event it is worth remembering that seasonal flu often poses a serious threat to public health – each year it kills 250,000 – 500,000 around the world.
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