Swine flu will be biggest pandemic ever, warns world health chief

Swine flu will be biggest pandemic ever, warns world health chief

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/16/swine-flu-pandemic-who-warning

As swine flu sweeps the planet, Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organisation, tells how she is leading the battle against it – and the personal price she is paying

Although she would no doubt point out that swine flu should properly be called H1N1, there is something pleasing in the fact that the first thing Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation, does when I enter her office is pick up a cut-out of a pig that has fallen on its face and carefully place it upright. A pink and gilt confection, it's left over from celebrating the Chinese year of the pig in 2007: it was so cute, she says, that she couldn't bear to throw it out.

A year earlier, Chan had been a surprise candidate in a surprise election (the previous incumbent died halfway through his term), but she won with a clear majority to become the first Chinese national to run a major UN agency. A rule change in 2005 (the WHO no longer has to beg states for information about threats to global health, but can just demand it) also makes her the most powerful public health official in history.

I've read repeatedly on DU that this pandemic is nothing to worry about and just being used to scare people.

didn't some experts predict that (if I am remembering this correctly) there would be a second wave of the flu that would be far worse than the first - and that this was also exactly how it occurred during the 1918 epidemic?

The more of us they can kill, the more NR left for THEIR
future generations.
My 2 cents on the matter...
BHN

When was that 10 years ago or so.......

My sister was one of the people that acquired Guillain-Barré syndrome after the shot. I think I would rather take my chances with the flu.

will it come back in the fall and winter in the usa in a more virulent strain? at this time no one knows.

very interesting article...preventable conditions will lead to more deaths in the future than the flu.

It just means that the disease has spread worldwide. How virulent the second wave will be, remains to be seen, but I suspect those who survived a mild bout of the first wave will be immune.

That is the comparison being made--not just that it will be spread throughout the world, but with the 1918 pandemic being held up as the example of what might be expected.

Edited: We're all DOOMED!


Run for the hills!!!!!!!