However, the current type of flu in the news is a mixture of swine, bird, and human flu strains, and because of the human part does pass easily from person to person.

The flu in the news is called swine flu because it contains part of the swine flu virus, but it’s still unknown if it ever infected a pig (although it’s likely).

h1n1 is a bird,pig,human hybrid flu. and it only hurts people…no pig or bird has h1n1 kinda cool eh?

Because of this, the standard treatment for regular flu is no drugs at all in otherwise healthy people. The antiflu drugs are only used on regular flu in people who can develop complications, like the elderly, people with weak immune systems (chemotherapy patients, people with organ transplants, etc), and people with chronic breathing problems (asthma, emphysema, etc).

Swine flu follows an opposite pattern from this. It is the most dangerous to young, healthy people, who in normal flu wouldn’t be treated with antiflu drugs. Everyone who contracts swine flu must be given Tamiflu or Relenza–but they didn’t know this.

The first cases of swine flu in Mexico occurred in a rural area with substandard medical care. Doctors there were able to determine that it was a new strain of flu, but as new strains develop all the time they weren’t particularly worried. It wasn’t until people began to get sick and die in more urban areas that they realized they had a problem. Then, they had to figure out what the virus was–but the only labs that had the capability to do that were in the US and Canada. They also did not know exactly how the virus worked, so they continued to follow the standard flu treatment regime–not knowing what medications, if any, worked, and treating those who were in danger from normal flu. Many people got sick and died during this time. Eventually, the strain was identified and shown to respond to Tamiflu and Relenza. And doctors in Mexico realized that everyone must be treated with one of these due to the deaths of young people. But it took awhile to discover this. And people died in the meantime.

The poverty and stretches of rural ares in Mexico also plays a part. In a small farming village, the doctor may not be able to test flu strains at all in office. (In the US, many doctors are able to test for normal flu strains, and anything that doesn’t type is possible swine flu.) The town may not have any antiflu medications at all, and they would need to be shipped. But Tamiflu or Relenza must be given within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms, and in many rural areas it would take longer than this for the doctor to test the strain and get the medication. If people develop complications in these areas, they may not be transported to the hospital in time. Even if they get there, the hospital may not have any mechanical ventilators–and if they do, they are not the newer, more effective ones that hospitals in the US have.

An accurate mortality rate for developed countries is not really possible yet. The US has had one death in about 100 cases, which would place the mortality rate closer to normal flu, but until more people get sick, we won’t know. Many of the people who have gotten sick in the US are children, who are less susceptible to the complication of swine flu that kills people than young adults.