Swine Flu Deaths Increase Worldwide
There has been much going on with the H1N1 virus (aka swine flu) now that the winter season is right on our heels. Countries all over the world are preparing for swine flu vaccines, but until it is made available everywhere, there will continue to be people contracting the pandemic virus. What’s worse though is that there is still an increase in swine flu deaths in pretty much every corner of the globe.
As of October 4, the World Health Organization gave an update of deaths reported from the virus - 4,525. This is a very steep number, but when considering the time frame and the number of people who have been infected with the illness, this looks very low.
There have been so many people to get the virus that countries nearly stopped reporting every single one that came up. With it being so wide spread, it’s become hard to keep up with it exactly, but there are more than 378,223 people worldwide to have had the virus as of October 9. It’s hard to believe that the swine flu has infected this many people since just April when it originated in Mexico, but there are even more cases that haven’t been reported. Now 4,525 deaths doesn’t seem so bad.
However, there is an ugly truth to this - the H1N1 virus is killing young mothers, mothers-to-be, young children and senior citizens. Nearly all of the young kids and senior citizens who have died from the illness have had underlying health conditions - even chronic illness - which makes their immune system to weak, causing it to lose the battle against the flu. This is the same for pregnant women and women who have just given birth.
These are the people that need to take more extreme actions to prevent contracting the swine flu. They need to avoid coming into contact with people who have flu-like symptoms, wash their hands with warm water and soap after coughing and sneezing, as well as use hand sanitizers when they aren’t able to get to a sink.