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i've just seen a developing story from cnn, they show more evidence towards the threat level rising to 5 within the next few hours and patient zero has been discovered as a five year old boy from Mexico. Since Obama's last visit to Mexico it has been reported he has contracted swine flu. [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.0.250 ( talk) 18:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
--If the WHO announces a level 5 it's rumored most U.S. schools will shut down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCoolOne99 ( talk • contribs) 19:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
In the first paragraph of the introduction, it says "Despite the scale of the alert, the WHO stated on April 29 that the majority of people infected with the virus make a full recovery without need of medical attention or antiviral drugs." "with the virus make a full recovery" doesn't make sense; does it mean "with the virus will make" or "with the virus have made"? I checked the cited source, but it didn't clarify from what I could tell. Cordovao ( talk) 19:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Please do not adjust the article to say level 5 has been reached without citing a reliable source. We know the level has been reached, but please cite to a reliable source nonetheless. Thank you in advance. Cordovao ( talk) 20:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
CNN has it. Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page). I'm not great with editing so I'll leave it up to some of the more technically inclined people to do it. I'm more here for fact checking.
Pharmaediting11 (
talk) 20:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Its important to remember that the WHO director is the director of an international health organization. Her comments are primarialy directed at national leaders; national health organizations; and medical centers. While we record her comments in an encylopedia nature and the press covers it, her comments are not directly intedended for private individuals. Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and prepare your zombie defense kits. Its not yet time to start looting or shooting people in the head. For most of us, nothing actually changes from 4 to 5 to 6, only the wikipedia article. -- PigFlu Oink ( talk) 21:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
RE: Pandemic_Severity_Index#Guidelines
I am confused, this section of wikipedia only goes up to level 5, and the graph, from the CDC, only goes up to level 5, quoting the CDC:
Can someone clarify in the Pandemic_Severity_Index article? Ikip ( talk) 21:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The fact that it traveled through a bird and then a pig is meaningless now that the flu is spreading person to person.
Currently it is not yet categorized as pandemic, thus keep it named outbreak but please remove the work swine from this article. Mineralè ( talk) 21:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Is there a place to report new cases, or do we just sit back and wait for it to work its way through the system. I'm referring to http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/042909kvue_Lucy_Reed-cb.26f0453.html (Austin, TX school closed because of probable case) Victor Engel ( talk) 21:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
WHO Phase 5 does not represent a Pandemic, but a likely Pandemic.
Thus I shall be removing erroneous references describing the current WHO classification as a Pandemic. Please comment as appropriate. - Rushyo Talk 22:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
There appears to be some confusion over what the WHO alert scale is actually about. Having worked in developing software for managing pandemics within the British NHS, I've done plenty of extended reading to familiarise myself with national and international procedures regarding pandemic continuity planning.
The WHO system is an 'alert scale'. It represents the planning stages to be utilised in individual country's continuity plans for dealing with a pandemic. As the stage increases, each country is expected to adopt a different set of procedures relevant to that stage of a pandemic. However, the confusion therein lies in the fact that WHO clarification includes planning for a pandemic. WHO Phase 5 refers to an 'imminent pandemic'. It is assumed, at this stage, that a pandemic is about to occur and that countries should plan as though one were inevitable. However, it does not represent an actual, on-going pandemic.
You have to bear in mind that the WHO's scale is not for general consumption. It is aimed at informing branches of national governments which measures of their comprehensive (or otherwise) plans they should be enacting at any given moment. Notice how the text is written and who the intended audience is.
The WHO, confusingly, uses the term 'pandemic' in many different contexts. The outbreak itself is not labelled as a pandemic, but the procedures being enacted, and the status assigned to them, are those of a pandemic (literally: pertaining to a future pandemic). Phase 5 refers to a localised series of community level outbreaks. By its very nature, a localised outbreak cannot be a pandemic. It would be a contradiction.
Addendum: "An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness." [5]
"The World Health Organization has raised its alert to level five - one short of a full-blown pandemic." - [6]
Both the WHO and the BBC refer to Stage 5 of the plan (that image aside) as an epidemic leading up to a pandemic, not otherwise.
For the record, text is always more authoritative than an associated 'dumbed down' image. - Rushyo Talk 23:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Discussion of how WP:NPOV governs article content |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Some persons think that the flu pandemic is a lie and that the frequency of deaths during this period is the normal frequency of people who die of pneumonia. I do not think so, but I also consider that we should give a place for conspiracy theories if we want to present the multiple points of view of this outbreak.-- Fixvon ( talk) 23:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
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In the intro someone put many schools closed and I changed it to a few. Then it was changed to numerous schools, then I changed it what I counted from the references to be 18. What do you think is the right thing to do? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 02:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, apparently 1 in NYC and one in Onondaga County (Central New York State). That is all I know of in NYS. I am probably wrong, there could be more. BFritzen ( talk) 02:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The caption to the pig image says "Pigs can harbor influenza viruses adapted to humans and others adapted to birds, allowing the viruses to exchange genes and create a pandemic strain."
The last five words of that sentence are unnecessary, speculative and alarmist. 58.165.254.91 ( talk) 03:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE53N22820090430
Just out. rootology ( C)( T) 05:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
President Correa issued today the order, even though there are no possible cases there. Source in Spanish, from La Hora-- Fryant ( talk) 11:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I hear Japan was calling it the 'North American Flu' or something. Should they be at the top as an alternate name with the others? Lemniwinks ( talk) 22:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't this article include (mayhap I have yet to see it) the normal death toll of influenza? From WHO:
In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. Most deaths currently associated with influenza in industrialized countries occur among the elderly over 65 years of age.
So, 250 000/ 365 = 685 500 000/ 365 = 1370. So, according to statistics, between 685 to 1,370 people die from influenza every day.... is this really all that different. Shouldn't we put forth the "disclaimer" that strains of influenza cause X amount of deaths every year/ or day at the top of the article in order to put this into perspective? BFritzen ( talk) 02:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I think that is a good idea!-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 02:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Not a disclaimer per se but I did include the WHO quote to give unbiased perspective, just straight forward. I "block text"ed it in order to have it stand out a bit, but I think that it only adds to what we are trying to accomplish. Reading those first paragraphs (as a current event) may prove to be unintentional sensationalism (and only because it is current). I think the paragraph I added puts perspective. Oh and to continue on your train of thought: do we pile the bodies next to all the AIDS and SARS victims? I remember when AIDS was first talked about and the sensationalism that made us think bodies would be lining the street, "The new Black Plague" they called it. (I am not making fun of the victims just our ability to sensationalize.) BFritzen ( talk) 03:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The Prior influenza season section has already had these statistics for a number of days, and supplies context effectively as the first section. Wikipedia articles make little allowance for the level of excitement or firmness of opinion in readers. (Editors are another matter…) Intros need to concisely include the significance of the topic, which currently in this case comes from the warnings of major health authorities, the actions of various countries, and the wide media coverage. -- Zigger «º» 03:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I moved the quote to the middle of the introduction and (right after the explanation that it is a new virus). So it is sort here is the new virus. Here is what the old virus does. We don't know what the new virus does and here is what is going on. I think it helps the readability. Hdstubbs ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC).
All this panic is senseless.Its far more likely to gain in alottery, than to die of this flu. Agre22 ( talk) 03:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)agre22
See "Alaska included as confirmed death?" for relevent discussion. I will begin working on a new map now, seeing as there were no objections. I will post the finished product in a new section before adding it to the article. Drew R. Smith ( talk) 02:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The second sentence of the lead currently reads that the outbreak is not swine flu, but it is my understanding that in fact the flu is a mixture of several virii viruses and is at least partially swine. Is this correct and if so should this sentence be modified?
Oren0 (
talk) 03:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/suspected-swine-flu-cases-rise-104-2691146
16 confirmed. A further 104 are suspected cases with another 111 in quarantine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.136.128.201 ( talk) 05:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
A note on the 16 'confirmed' cases. 3 people in NZ have tested positive for swine flu. Another 13 have tested positive for influenza type A, and have been in and infected area (Mexico) or have been in close contact with a confirmed or probable case. These are often referred to as having swine flu, but have never had a definitive test (only influenza type A).
I think for the purposes of the table, it should use the NZ ministry of health statistics of 3 confirmed, 13 probable and 63 suspected ,or perhaps 76 probable and suspected in the ‘other suspected’ column of the table.
The following link may be more authoritative that news websites.
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/mexican-swine-influenza-update-fourteen-300409?Open —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.147.198 ( talk) 09:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The new website has the exact same information. It has been updated... 16 confirmed, 111 are probable and 121 are suspected.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/suspected-swine-flu-cases-rise-104-2691146 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.136.128.201 ( talk) 10:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Why is a world view important?!?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.16.227.140 ( talk) 12:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I included this and even asked opinion in Facts Vs Fears (or whatever I called it.) Does anyone think this should be removed, kept, or edited? BFritzen ( talk) 13:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
el:Νέος ιός γρίπης —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swineinfluenza ( talk • contribs) 13:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Not being able to edit the article makes me feel alienated from Wikipedia. Better accept the risk of a few trolls messing up rather than alienate your users. Swineinfluenza ( talk) 13:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Is the response to this by the media something we should consider adding as a new section to the article? The media is giving this a lot press and I think that it might be something worth mentioning. I don't know if there are sources that we can use on the matter, but it's something to look at. My reason being that given the speed at which information can be disseminated in today's world essentially allows for almost everyone to know everything instantly. I think there could be a focus on whether the media is helpful or hurtful (spreading information or spreading panic) and especially its impact on helping people/organizations/governments coordinate their efforts so that the spread can be minimized. I'm having a bit of trouble articulating exactly what I'm thinking, but I think that you get the idea. The media will likely end up playing a big role in this (especially if this turns into a full blown pandemic) so I think that we should give some sort of mention to it here. What do you guys think? Pharmaediting11 ( talk) 14:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The Smithfield/Granjas Carroll operation mentioned in the press is annotated in Google Earth, and clearly visible as a large number of CAFOs near Perote, Veracruz [11], but it is five towns north of La Gloria, Veracruz. There is a CAFO one town west of La Gloria with an obvious sewage lagoon. [12] Interestingly, there is another group of somewhat similar buildings even closer to La Gloria, but these have no sewage lagoon. [13] Since even the Michigan Sierra Club describes CAFOs with drainage tiles running into local streams, it is interesting that these buildings seem to have a wash leading into a dry riverbed which I think flows past La Gloria. Has anyone spotted mention of these closer farms in the Mexican press? Mike Serfas ( talk) 15:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The purpose of Wikipedia is for encyclopedic articles, not news articles. I would say IMHO that the news articles referenced are not verifiable information, but fluid information that is likely to change. They are written with less stringent controls as would be published, peer-reviewed articles. A better place for all of this fluid and dynamically and increasingly "speculative" info should be placed in Wikinews, and not Wikipedia. We should be posting only verifiable information, which would include laboratory-confirmed cases and confirmed cause of death due to swine flu. Other information is just not encyclopedic. Flipper9 ( talk) 16:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC) — Flipper9 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
To be clear about the inappropriate tag I added to the main article: all of the "suspected cases", "probable cases" and "probable deaths" are unverifiable information. Just because a news article says it, that is more speculative information and has no basic in something that can be verified. For example, news articles are regularly updated, retracted, and sometimes based on the flimsiest of evidence. The information gleaned from the popular press IMHO is not verifiable in the strictest sense. Yes; you can lookup the article and see that some guy at a news organization wrote it, but it's not verifiable by any authority. The only verifiable information is confirmed cases of infection and confirmed cases of death. The other columns of possible or probable cases and deaths is not something you would expect to find in an encyclopedia article; but in a dynamically updated news article or site, hence why that unverifiable information should be placed in Wikinews or some other wiki site. Flipper9 ( talk) 16:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Since 206 editors have worked on Template:2009_swine_flu_outbreak_table, listing the presummed cases, and you are the first editor to bring this up, I don't think there is any conensus for change. Ikip ( talk) 17:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Flipper, While, I think we all agree with what you are saying, there already was a tag that this article refers to a "Current Event" and as such, the article can change rapidly. I think that is enough of a statement to cover what you two are disputing. Further, DON"T EDIT WAR (Not aimed at FLIPER per se) But I could see one brewing. BFritzen ( talk) 18:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V#Reliable_sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V#Questionable_sources
While a popular news article (which all of the "suspected" and "unconfirmed" numbers are referenced to) can be reliable, it's only reliable when they are reporting news from an authority in the subject. The purpose of the popular news is to generate articles that get people to read their articles, so they impart sensationalism to get people to read them. They include hearsay, unchecked "facts", and information that is not verifiable. You cannot verify that someone has the swine flu disease (which this article is about) if the data is unverified, i.e. someone thinks that someone has the disease. Suspected cases are not notable, and do not fulfill this criterion for inclusion into Wikipedia. Flipper9 ( talk) 18:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand your point about the suspected cases being impossible to verify. That is like saying that it is impossible to verify that people suspect OJ Simpson committed murder when he wasn't convicted. The verification of the suspicion is the news article that identifies the suspicion. I don't think that having suspected cases is against wikipedia policy at all. It is not impossible to verify that they are suspected. We are using the most reliable source (the news media)available at this time. If you want up the level of verification in the table by using the most reliable source about current suspected cases then I think that is correct, just as we do any piece of information in Wikipedia.
And in the future, the article on the issue, will almost certainly have information regarding the number suspected cases and the perception of suspected cases and how that influenced the event. While, we can't see how it will influence this event, we can (and should) include that the suspected cases exist. Hdstubbs ( talk) 19:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it the values of zero that are unverifiable and unreferenced? (This comment could probably be on the table's talk page, but it seems appropriate in this thread.) -- Zigger «º» 20:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Per todays webcast: Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rich Besser, says they have rolled out test kits to NewYork and Califonia: They expect to be able to roll out testing kits to other states on Monday. Prior, testing was only avaliable at CDC headquaters in Atlanta. The new kits are expected to be able to speed up the testing process. Dr Besser also said that Mexico has just now been able to do their own testing. -- PigFlu Oink ( talk) 17:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Leads to American Idol's finalist Adam Lamebert's fan site. Another reason behind Wikipedia being nothing more than a synonym for retarded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.179.74.165 ( talk) 17:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The page is getting awfully long again. I know there is a bot that does this, but should we manually archive some in the meantime, like we did before? hmwith τ 18:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Since Twitter is a Social Networking/ Micro Blogging Site, does can response on Twitter be considered as Media Response as opposed the Public Response?
I think that there should be a clear line between Media Response and Public response, with Media reponse being limited to the response of the professional journalists, as opposed to reponse of amateur journalists/general public, which should be considered public reponse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chanhee920 ( talk • contribs) 18:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree -- Ken Durham ( talk) 18:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
It's been deleted, although should a Public Response section be created, I think this would be well worth adding.
Chanhee920 (
talk) 18:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/5236447/Swine-flu-Twitter-used-to-spread-news-around-world.html http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/27/swine.flu.twitter/index.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdstubbs ( talk • contribs) 20:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
In the cases by country table, It is shown 159 confirmed cases in México., That is very far from the official number.
that number 195 is not supported by the link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6189805.ece
"The number of suspected swine flu deaths in Mexico rose again last night to 159"
Note the difference than "suspected" than "confirmed"
The official number is provided by WHO, and Mexico has 26 confirmed
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_04_29/en/index.html
"29 April 2009 -- The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 18:00 GMT, 29 April 2009, nine countries have officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 91 laboratory confirmed human cases, with one death. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceglez ( talk • contribs) 18:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean to say that the information is inaccurate? Or did you really mean not precise?
Its difficult to be precise with matters such as this.If you mean inaccurate, then just edit it with what you believe is correct (although I recommend the date updated on your source and the cited source before you do this). Chanhee920 ( talk) 18:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
A few hours ago the mexican Health Secretary announced that there were 260 confirmed cases. Isn't that offcial information?? The table showed that value a little ago, why did you replace it with 97 again? Rodcontr ( talk) 22:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
People keep chopping names based on their personal opinions without bothering to research them properly. North American influenza appears to be the most common to go although it appears widely used particularly by pork and food industry source. A Google News search, which I don't particularly like but seems our best option at the moment, reveals the least used term is probably swine-origin influenza which may have been used by the CDC for a while but appears to have been abandoned in favour of 2009 H1N1 flu. If we do want to remove one this is probably the first to go. Either that or we leave it be for now and wait until things settle down. Nil Einne ( talk) 18:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I have removed "swine-origin influenza". Firstly, in the citation given it is not called that but "Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1)". I can't find anyone calling it "swine-origin influenza". Secondly "Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1)" is just a more descriptive form of "Influenza A (H1N1)" which is already listed, and not a seperate name that needs to clog up the first paragraph. -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 20:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Names were swiped clean, I undid it. BFritzen ( talk) 20:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
North American Influenza is not in common use, but it is only a proposed name. I would consider it political maneuvering to give readers the impression that this strain "is known as" North American Influenza, when in fact, only the other three names have gained support for common use. Additionally, the largest region of the North American continent does not have a large number of flu cases during the intial outbreak. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fpbear ( talk • contribs) 02:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Reminder: Some web pages used as references are frequently updated, especially primary sources, and others are not permanent. These types of URLs are more common in current event articles. The Webcite Consortium [15] is one provider of third-party archiving, and identifies Wikipedia as a Level-2 member. [16] This is a call to archive reference web page content that might otherwise be lost leading to verification problems and incorrect OR challenges/defences. -- Zigger «º» 20:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not much a computer nerd. Can you explain this in English? Thanks :) Hdstubbs ( talk) 20:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Lol :) Thanks a lot for the plain English. So how do you use this webcite thingy? Just make sure that we use permanent urls? (Is that right?) What if we can't find them? Hdstubbs ( talk) 20:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
How is it possible that confirmed cases are higher than probable? That doesn't make sense to me. Example Canada 34[7] 22[8] Yogiudo ( talk) 22:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
These are mutually exclusive categories. As people are tested and found not to have this strain, they are excluded from all 4 categories. Thus, the number of confirmed cases can only grow, but the numbers of probable and suspected cases can (and do) grow and shrink. -- Una Smith ( talk) 22:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
sure svg is the standard but some people (like me) who like to be informed dont have a super computer to open a huge svg file, why not use a hi-resolution ong instead? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.6.195.131 ( talk) 06:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Per WP:LEAD: "As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than four paragraphs." While this is a general guideline, I don't see a compelling reason to exempt this article. Other broader and more important topics (e.g. DNA, Virus) are able to summarize their articles' content in significantly fewer words. Emw2012 ( talk) 14:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The 2009 swine flu outbreak is an epidemic that began in April 2009 with a new strain of influenza virus. The new strain is commonly called swine flu, but some parties object to the name and it has also been referred to as Mexican flu,[50] swine-origin influenza,[51] North American influenza,[52] and 2009 H1N1 flu.[50] The outbreak is believed to have started in March 2009.[53] Local outbreaks of an influenza-like illness were first detected in three areas of Mexico, but the virus responsible was not clinically identified as a new strain until April 24, 2009. Following the identification, its presence was soon confirmed in various Mexican states and in Mexico City. Within days, isolated cases (and suspected cases) were identified elsewhere in Mexico, the U.S., and several other Northern Hemisphere countries.
The new strain is an apparent reassortment of four strains of influenza A virus subtype H1N1.[57] Analysis at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified the four component strains as one endemic in humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine).[57] One swine strain was widespread in the United States, the other in Eurasia.[57] The common human H1N1 influenza virus affects millions of people every year, according to the WHO, "In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections...which results in between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. "[58] In industrialized countries most of these deaths occur in those 65 or older.[58]
In late April both the United Nations WHO and the U.S. CDC expressed serious concern about the situation, as it had the potential to become a flu pandemic due to the novelty of the influenza strain, its transmission from human to human, and the unusually high mortality rate in Mexico.[59] On April 25, 2009, the WHO formally determined the situation to be a "public health emergency of international concern", with knowledge lacking in regard to "the clinical features, epidemiology, and virology of reported cases and the appropriate responses".[60] By April 28,
the new strain was confirmed to have spread to Spain, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Israel, and the virus was suspected in many other nations, with a total of over 3,000 candidate cases, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to change its pandemic alert phase to "Phase 5",[54][55][56] which denotes "widespread human infection". Governments around the world have expressed concern over this virus and are monitoring the situation closely.
Mexico's schools, universities, and all public events will be closed from April 24, 2009 to May 6, 2009.[61][62] On April 27, 2009, a few schools in the U.S. closed due to confirmed cases in students.[63][64] Two days later the action extended to 18 more U.S. schools as the disease became more widespread in the U.S.,[65][66][67][68][69] the same day the Mexican government ordered a shutdown of all non-essential activities in the government and private sector, amounting to a shutdown of most of the country's economy.[70]
Pharmaediting11 ( talk) 15:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)In late April both the United Nations WHO and the U.S. CDC expressed serious concern about the situation, as it had the potential to become a flu pandemic due to the novelty of the influenza strain, its transmission from human to human, and the unusually high mortality rate in Mexico.[59] On April 25, 2009, the WHO formally determined the situation to be a "public health emergency of international concern", with knowledge lacking in regard to "the clinical features, epidemiology, and virology of reported cases and the appropriate responses".[60] By April 28, the World Health Organization (WHO) changed its pandemic alert phase to "Phase 5",[54][55][56] which denotes "widespread human infection". Governments around the world have expressed concern over this virus and are monitoring the situation closely.
The previous work to fix the lead's length seems to have gone well, but now the lead seems to have regrown its fifth paragraph. Emw2012 ( talk) 21:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I re-worked it and cut the information that is covered in depth later in the article so it is back down to four. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdstubbs ( talk • contribs) 09:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Between this and other efforts like Google's Flu Trends system -- http://www.google.org/flutrends/ -- the Internet is really emerging as a great medium for real-time information exchange. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.98.245.197 ( talk) 16:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I like the article much better. It is much more accurate and tells the facts in a very neutral way (particularly the description of the initial outbreaks. Great work! I like it a lot! Thanks.-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 22:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Fully agree your doing a great job I was tracking SARS for a large enterprise and it was dozens of people, spread sheets and prediction models to monitor the spread of the outbreak. This time we just go to Wikipedia and other social network tools. Fantastic Work —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.228.81.122 ( talk) 14:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In references, can someone please fix? BFritzen ( talk) 16:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
In reference 11 seems to be the letter d of "Englan" missing.-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 16:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Has anyone seen info on how long victims have lived between the time they first showed symptoms and death? Please add this info if you can find it. ike9898 ( talk) 19:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Incubation period refers to the time between when you first contract the disease and when you start to exhibit symptoms. Depending on what disease it is you may or may not be contagious during this time. As for flu, I can't exactly remember all the specifics about it. (I knew I should have paid closer attention in virology class this semester) :) Pharmaediting11 ( talk) 00:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Revert vandalism by Hsibley -- under "spread within Mexico", text was changed to read "over 9000" from the previous "over 3000" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.110.178.157 ( talk) 23:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://www.who.int/about/regions/en/index.html
The WHO region map is salient, and not only because of the two-region criterion of Phase Six. It would be useful and informative to color-code their map as the epidemic develops in conjunction with the Mollweide projection —some of those nation-states are kind of cramped. And it's a global epidemic —why not use the WHO's global regions? We are using their data, after all! kencf0618 ( talk) 23:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Since yesterday [17], it seems we have two symptoms images to choose between now, which gives us the advantage to use the one we think fits best. In terms of symptoms, they both say exactly the same. 1 is public domain, while 2, on the other hand, has some rights reserved. 1 looks more realistic, while 2 is more diagram-like. The only other difference is I can see directly is that 2 is taller in order to make the text come out in same size. Are there any other pros and cons, and which one should we have? Mikael Häggström ( talk) 04:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I like the second one; perhaps someone could color-edit it so that the affected organs match the highlight color of the symptoms pointing to them, for easier reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.194.197.134 ( talk) 05:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I prefer the first one. kencf0618 ( talk) 06:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I like the second one. The first one is creepy, to me. I don't like the way his creepy eyes stare out at me when I can see his brain. Hdstubbs ( talk) 07:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't like either. Do we really need these to begin with? The symptoms of swine flue are identical to the symptoms of a bad strain of seasonal flu; in fact, most of the symptoms, e.g. diarrhea, nausea, lethargy, are common to hundreds of unrelated diseases. Does this chart really offer any useful information? What purpose does it serve? Before editors start spending hours creating worthless charts for all sorts of diseases, we really should have this debate. But if we're going to use a chart, I would prefer using an illustration of a person rather than have someone pose as a model, and in any case, the head should be turned sideways to properly illustrate the nasopharynx and areas of the brain (cerebellum).-- 98.232.98.144 ( talk) 07:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Nobody seems to have noticed that psychological is spelled wrong in the second image (both versions). — Xy 7 10:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The version that is currently in the article (niether #1 nor #2) looks amateurish (no offense). Replacing it with either #1 or #2 would be an improvement. ike9898 ( talk) 13:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I fixed the spelling error and used a PD image for the brain so now the whole file is in the public domain. (4) WilliamTheaker ( talk) 03:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I feel our coverage of the disease name (section 8) should include the reactions or overreactions to the virus that have happened as a result of people erroneously believing (based on only the disease's name) that it is carried by pigs or pig products.
Specifically, two articles that cover this: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/04/30/1915246.aspx http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/30/pork.industry.impact/index.html
The erroneous impacts / reactions include mass killings of livestock and improper bannings of imports from certain countries. It is quite notable and directly tied to the improper naming of the virus as a "swine flu."
Why are we relying on other news sources instead of the WHO daily updates to provide updated statistics?
Right here it says... http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_01/en/index.html
There are only 156 confirmed cases in Mexico not 312. There are 109 in the USA not 138.
For whatever reason the other countries are correct but why do we keep on inflating the numbers for the US and Mexico?
I don't care if a news source quotes a us or mexican official, the way the news is being carried at the moment makes a lot of the information by the media unreliable. Just consider this headline by the Times Online which is being used as a source for suspected cases. The headline blares "Mexico confirms swine flu toll rises to 159" while the first line in the story says "The number of suspected swine flu deaths in Mexico rose again last night to 159," if this is not enough evidence as to why we should stick exclusively with what WHO and CDC are saying then this article is as pointless as half the news article circulating out there.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6189805.ece —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.143.230.247 ( talk) 07:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
It's annoying, the values go up and down depending on who edited according to what source
Just use WHO and stick to it to avoid this confusing and quite amateuristic yo-yo effect
Dr-gonzo (
talk) 08:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Two points: One you should make this argument on the talk page for the template (the link is at the top of this page) and Two, instead of just using WHO, which is a good source, but shouldn't be the only source, why not make a rule that we only use government agencies for info on lab confirmed cases? 62.69.130.82 ( talk) 09:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
This is not about renaming/moving this article, it's about the name of this specific strain of Influenza A virus of subtype H1N1.
It makes no sense that this strain can be called influenza A (H1N1) or H1N1 influenza. That's like calling one specific species of falcon "Bird", or "Aves Falconiformes".
2009 H1N1 flu only makes sense if there is only one strain a year of H1N1.
North-American flu for this strain is less specific than the strain's own constituants: North American swine influenza and North American avian influenza.
I understand that Wikipedia just summarizes what primary and secondary sources say, but are there no sources that have given this strain a sensible name? -- Jeandré, 2009-05-01 t13:38z
Renaming Swine Flu to anything else at this point would be nonsense. There was no Bird Producer Lobby pushing to have Bird Flu renamed, but if there was, could anyone imagine the disservice renaming it would cause. Here in Canada our National News Media, The CBC, said they will not allow the Pork Lobby to dictate a name change to what is commonly known as Swine Flu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.212.41.12 ( talk) 17:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The name is important because "swine flu" implies an assumed zoonosis, meaning swine influenza crossing the species barrier into humans. So far, this strain has not been found in swine. Thus, this new strain appears to be a new strain of human influenza and "swine flu" is a misnomer. -- Una Smith ( talk) 19:07, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Is Influenza A (A/California/09/2009(H1N1)) the actual scientific name or does it have the word Mexico city in place of California? I've seen both. Does anyone have a link? I think that would be useful to put into the article. Hdstubbs ( talk) 09:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
In the 2003 pandemic, did the WHO bring their alert level to Phase 6 or did it stay below that the whole time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.47.141.21 ( talk) 15:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
They've never raised it above 3. Barnaby dawson ( talk) 15:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
HMWITH you are totally right and I am breaking the rules but in answer to the question: this current pandemic six stage alert system was completely revamped post SARS because of what they felt was some problems with the system. So there was a system in place but it wasn't these same levels (I don't know if it was still six stages). I can't remember where I read this or I would send you the link. Hdstubbs ( talk) 18:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I am concerned that this article is misleading. Media reports of suspected cases, confirmed cases and deaths are given to several significant figures. This gives the impression that the number of individuals infected falls between the suspected number and the confirmed number and that there is a high degree of accurary in these figures themselves. However, this seems likely to be false as suspected cases almost only consist of people who have contacted a doctor, have been detected at a national border or have had contact with these two groups. In addition not all countries may be accurately reporting their figures. The real number of infected is almost certainly higher. Which means that the flu has spread faster than our article suggests and is less deadly than it implies (assuming that deaths are more likely to be detected than mild cases). I don't have the time to search for references to confirm or settle this but I think it should be done. If I'm right our graphs, the table and the introduction should make it clear that the figures quoted do not correspond to actual infections (and possibly not even actual mortality rates). Barnaby dawson ( talk) 15:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In fact I think the graphs, tables and the introduction should make this clear anyhow. If there is evidence I'm right we may need to edit the article more heavily. Barnaby dawson ( talk) 15:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Where are you getting these "laboratory confirmed" numbers? They keep jumping back and forth. Sometimes when I click refresh on the page a "laboratory confirmed" count decreases. Either it's confirmed or it isn't. Do they go back and retract confirmations, or why are we seeing these highly nonsensical fluctuations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.33.89.195 ( talk) 16:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In the "spread within Mexico" section, the first sentence isn't properly sourced:
The source for this claim is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8017585.stm but it doesn't say anything about March 18 or Mexico City. Analoguni ( talk) 16:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
According to BBC China has confirmed their first case of H1N1 2009 - Flu in Hong Kong in a man traveling via Shanghai. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8028169.stm http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/health/02flu.html?ref=asia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.173.57.165 ( talk) 16:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The Chinese have cordoned off the area around the hotel.
Article should be updated to note a confirmed case in China. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.173.57.165 ( talk) 16:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In the Spread in Mexico section it reads:
"The strain appears to be unusually lethal in Mexico but not in other countries."
this is POV and should accurately read "The strain in Mexico has caused 12 confirmed deaths so far while no other deaths have been reported in any other countries."
Is it unusual to die from the flu virus be it this strain or any other? Do the 12 confirmed deaths from H1N1 among the yet undetermined total number of cases give any basis to consider that this "strain appears to be unusually lethal"?
The wording conveys the sense that there is some sort of "supervirus" going on in Mexico causing an "unsual" number of deaths. This is not accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.143.17.185 ( talk) 18:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
South Korea should be yellow not red, and Russia also should be yellow since they are suspected. Kadrun ( talk) 19:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Discussion moved to
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The information presented in the Table on the number of Possible or Probable Cases and Deaths of H1N1 flu victims suffers from the inclusion of dozens of unreliable and unverifiable information which makes is not appropriate for an encyclopedic article on this subject and has gotten out of hand. Re: Reliable Sources for Medicine-Related Articles Many of the referenced sources are popular news articles that are passing along rumor and unverified information. What got me started trying to raise the flag about inaccurate information stemmed from several articles from non-popular, local news outlets that were simply reporting hearsay and random emails about someone possibly being sick, and then later retracting the information. The popular press is playing fast and loose with any facts they present, which makes the listing of possible and probable cases as something that is fluid, un-scientific, and unencyclopedic. The information from those sources would never make it into any journal article or respected publication due to these problems. It is irresponsible for wikipedians to be spreading such information on a medically-related wikipedia article, at the top of the page, that distorts the information being distributed by government sources and medically-oriented sources and publications about the outbreak. The table sensationalizes the issue, and portrays inaccurate numbers that are meaningless. Whereas some popular news articles publish updated WHO, CDC, and other medically-related bodies, that is okay as they are reporting verifiable facts. Years of medical school have taught me that for medicine, you need to look at your level of evidence...and Wikipedia is no different, especially when it comes to presenting information about medicine-related topics. We should be listing information from reliable sources, and only including breaking-information from those sources where an popular-press author has provided that information ahead of the reliable source's publications. Including popular-press scare-mongering information that is designed to grab headlines is not appropriate for an encyclopedic article that is supposed to be presenting a NPOV. I would like people to discuss this issue regarding the removal of unreliable information from the table. I tried adding a tag to the table sub-article, but was quickly banned by some authors that wanted to mute any discussion about reliable sources in inaccuracies. We are all trying to ensure that Wikipedia provides a balanced, and accurate representation. Flipper9 ( talk) 19:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
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Thanks to update french data:
source: http://www.invs.sante.fr/derniere_minute/fichiers/10.bilan01052009_19h00.pdf
-- 86.220.46.203 ( talk) 19:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC) Yes I Anonymous
I rewrote the second paragraph to be a little more accurate:
Although the exact time and location of the outbreak is unknown, it is believed to have been first detected when an influenza-like illness was reported by both health agencies and local news media in Mexico. The virus responsible was clinically identified as a new strain on April 24, 2009. Within days, isolated cases (and suspected cases) were identified elsewhere in Mexico, the U.S., and several other countries.
But could someone help me with adding the references to the bottom of the page. There should be a citation for this source after both the first and second sentences: http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html
Thanks. And could someone give me a link to how to change references myself? I can't find one. Hdstubbs ( talk) 20:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
{{editsemiprotected}}
Please get the death tolls from the WHO site, they are official figures,
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_01a/en/index.html - Latest Update http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html - Swine Flu main Page
The NYT article referred at reference 148 Fighting Deadly Flu mentions that "Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said" which is incorrect according to Influenza-like illness in the United States and Mexico The WHO release mentions that 18 of the 24 cases showing ILI were young, healthy adults. The same article mentioned that only 3 died, and gave no indication if those 3 were among the 18 or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.131.1.130 ( talk • contribs) 17:46, 1 May 2009
i don't really have time to scour this discussion for a thread similar to the one i'm proposing, however it seems prudent the occurrence of the term 'pandemic' in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH ought have a definition option attached.
so no one needs go scrambling for it, here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
i would add it as such, but the article seems locked (understandable...).
you're welcome ;-) 69.11.55.241 ( talk) 23:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Adressed. Vrinan ( talk) 23:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I was reading this on the CDC website and it breaks down (albeit in the USA) deaths and rates of infection for 3 different strains of influenza, but not AH1N1. Influenza by Week. It is not unlike what we are seeing with this one, but I will let you all read and (hopefully) get an idea that this is an epidemic (at most) and the "pandemoniademic" isn't really a threat. BFritzen ( talk) 02:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
You make a good point, that currently this epidemic is not what epidemiologists have long feared in terms of an influenza outbreak. However, even though the media has engaged in fear-mongering and hype, there is a real public health issue here for both developed and developing nations. [18]If you're looking for interesting article read this. -- Hdstubbs ( talk) 04:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I deleted the government actions section because it was already mentioned in the country specific discussion section. Just wanted to put it on the talk page in case anyone wanted to discuss. Hdstubbs ( talk) 03:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
This chapter has nothing lost on this page. I think it shoule be deleted or maybe linked somewhere.
- This is a international crisis and an international article. I dont see how the influenza season of one country is related to the topic in any way.
- the text is missleading because it doesnt mention that it talks about the US when stating "prior influenza season.
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
85.2.64.57 (
talk) 09:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
s It is not Smithfield Farms the one who has to say they are not the cause of the problem, OMS should confirm that. Because in 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia , but when NAFTA came into effect 1994, Smithfield Farms moved its harmful practices to Veracruz, Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators. Reporter Jeff Teitz reported in 2006 on the conditions in Smithfield’s US facilities: " Pigs are artificially inseminated and injected with antibiotics to bear the sicknesses they have. They are fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals became lethal and pigs start dying."
Consider what happens when such forms of massive pork production move to unregulated territory where Mexican authorities allow wealthy interests to do business without adequate oversight. What happen when a lagoon is near, filled with all that shit and flies transport their sicknesses to the people.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/28/index.php?section=opinion&article=020a1pol&partner=rss http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/04/24/index.php?section=opinion&article=026a2pol
So far, the only connection between the outbreak and this pig farm is a single case in the vicinity. Samples from other cases in the vicinity reportedly have been tested and were negative, and the corporation claims they test for swine flu in their pigs and found none. There was an outbreak of influenza-like illness in the vicinity early this year, but the connection to this outbreak is very weak. So, don't count on this theory holding up. -- Una Smith ( talk) 01:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Aw geeze, now ya tell me. I just bought a Smithfield ham yesterday... Terry Yager ( talk) 16:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
As we collected a lot of figures from hundred of different sources here, I made a chart of the reported possible and confirmed cases. The x-axis is in hours, started from 26th April 2009. The figures are taken from the article's and template's history every hour. Well 2 notes: Development for the confirmed cases seemed to be exponential (5 days/5 doublings: 30 - 60 - 120 - 240 - 500). The reported possible cases are rather linear. -- Grochim ( talk) 12:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Interresting, maybe add to the article, although I don't know if this qualifies as "original research". 128.232.228.74 ( talk) 13:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
(ec)While I appreciate the effort that Grochim took to make these charts, their use in the article is inappropriate because:
In short, despite the good intentions, these graphs are against wiki-policy of OR, and also meaningless, inaccurate and potentially alarming. So I'm going to remove them from the article; if you disagree feel free to discuss the issue here on talk page and establish consensus for inclusion. Abecedare ( talk) 16:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm in favor of seeing this in the article per wikipedia policy of using common sense. Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 19:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I suggest adding an estimate of the current death rate (i.e., percentage of death among the confirmed cases in the last one or two days), and graph its history since the beginning of the epidemic.. I believe this is a meaningful quantity, since it would (I expect) reflect the fact that awareness and treatment availability improve chances of survival, and it would help lower the level of panic among the population. I think lowering this level is an important goal of good informers, Wikipedians. 140.180.171.121 ( talk) 00:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I suggest we have a diagram showing daily *new* suspected/confirmed cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.26.209.10 ( talk) 16:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The latest Mexican numbers do not fit any statistical epidemiology/pandemic model. Looks like a hide and seek game influenced by political / economical factors. The truth will, as usual, reveal itself as time goes by. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.197.233.106 ( talk) 21:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
If there are confirmed cases of infection prior to when patient zero became infected (see main article), how is it that he is still being considered patient zero? Have there been any other patient zero candidates? Victor Engel ( talk) 21:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Any claims of a patient zero of are entirely media speculation. They do not know who patient zero is. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/29/2009-04-29_is_5yearold_edgar_hernandez_patient_zero_mexican_governor_says_so_officials_not_.html Hdstubbs ( talk) 02:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
As previous discussions show, that 5-year-old boy CANNOT be patient zero (by logic) even if media calls him though. Therefore, it can be put in the Widipedia article, but only with the hint that it is just called by the media so, but that there were other "cases" before (see Spanish version, for example): http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brote_de_gripe_porcina_de_2009#Origen-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 14:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Johann Hari has written a column in The Independent that claims the current flu came from factory-farmed pigs. [21] Does anyone know if this is possible or has been confirmed? The Four Deuces ( talk) 22:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
... the evidence is suggestive, although far from conclusive. We know that the city where this swine flu first emerged – Perote, Mexico – contains a massive industrial pig farm, and houses 950,000 pigs. Dr Silbergeld adds: "Factory farms are not biosecure at all. People are going in and out all the time. If you stand a few miles down-wind from a factory farm, you can pick up the pathogens easily. And manure from these farms isn't always disposed of."
This information is according to the Health Minister of the Mexican State of Sonora. Sonora borders the US state of Arizona.
Per the Health Minister of the state regarding the mortality rate of the H1N1 virus:
http://www.ehui.com/?c=20&a=117048
"Según los estudios que se han realizado de la influenza se determinó que la enfermedad es curable y que su índice de mortandad es de 3.6 por ciento, lo cual es similar a las neumonías que se presentan cada año, destacó Raymundo López Vucovich.
El Secretario de Salud aseguró que Sonora continúa libre del virus, pues no hay casos ni sospechosos, ni probables"
According to the studies made, the disease is treatable and the mortality rate is of 3.6% which is considered similar to that of the normal flu virus. He added that the state of Sonora is currently without any probable, confirmed or deadly cases to report.
GaussianCopula ( talk) 06:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
New Scientist quotes a study that shows infection rate Ro of AH1n! as being 1,16, meaning 100 people will infect 116 others, barely sustainable. Infection rate of Ro 2 is exponential, Spanish flu was 3,14, namely uncontrolable. If Ah1n1 Ro falls from 1,16 to under 0,99 it will die out. Washing hands would do that.
quote Weak virus
If the new virus spreads from one infected person to the next at about the same speed as ordinary flu, that gives an idea of how many cases there may have been in that time. A mathematical model permits the calculation of an important variable called R0 – the number of additional people infected, on average, by each case. If R0 is less than one, an infection dies out.
Grassly also cautions that the estimate is very preliminary. But with the data available now, he gets an R0 of 1.16 – enough for the virus to keep going, but only just. unquote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.69.69.7 ( talk) 12:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
More more persons will gain in lottery, than will die of this influenza.This panic is useless.This isn't the flu of 1918 and 1919 and our medicine and technology is faraheadm, than 1919. Agre22 ( talk) 14:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)agre22
Claiming that the H1N1 virus is not or very dangerous is at this point just POV as there is no way to predict the future development of this virus. We don't know how this virus will behave in an area like Africa. Or whether or not it will mutate into something more or less dangerous. Nor is there no cure for flu at the moment. Thus it is better to keep statements about the severity of the virus outside the article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050101777.html?hpid=topnews —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.31.72.151 ( talk) 18:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Cuba is now 'showing off' to. [ [22]] -- 86.29.246.140 ( talk) 10:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Infowars is nothing more than a conspiracy site. Its better to follow the WHO which has stated that it is far to early to make definitive conclusions about the severity of the virus. Than the ramblings of an man that has probable never read a book about microorganisms in his life. And is just trying to make an few bucks out of another tragedy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.31.72.151 ( talk) 12:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The article currently implies the virus is damaged by heating (ie, only by heating). In fact, it is damaged also by disinfectants and by freezing. To preserve fresh flu samples for testing, they are chilled, not frozen. Flu virus can be kept frozen for many years by (a) adding chemicals that prevent damage to the virus and (b) storing in the absence of ice and (b) avoiding freeze-thaw cycles. One way pig farmers control influenza is to ensure pigs with flu are kept in warm indoors and outdoors in warm weather or below freezing weather but not in cold weather. Assay kits for detecting H1N1 in swine are damaged by freezing because the kits use the two proteins (the H and N) used by the virus to enter host cells, and these proteins are inactivated by freezing. Some sources are below. -- Una Smith ( talk) 19:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
: Unknown parameter |month=
ignored (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)does the swine flu cause cytokine storms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.75.137 ( talk) 23:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
According to the Berlin immunologist Stefan Kaufmann as quoted in the Financial Times Deutschland, the death rate so far for the H1N1 virus is around 1% which is significantly lower than that of the avian flu which he considers it to be around 30%-50%. (The avian flu wikipedia article has the WHO official rate at around 60%).
"Auch diesmal melden Apotheken ebenfalls eine steigende Nachfrage nach Medikamenten. Die Regierung warnte aber davor, Tamiflu und ähnliche Medikamente präventiv einzunehmen. Die Schweinegrippe des Virentyps H1N1 sei viel ungefährlicher als die Vogelgrippe, erklärt der Berliner Immunologe Stefan Kaufmann. Die Schweinegrippe sei zwar im Gegensatz zur Vogelgrippe von Mensch zu Mensch übertragbar, die Todesrate liege aber nur bei rund einem Prozent. "Bei der Vogelgrippe sind es 30 bis 50 Prozent." "
GaussianCopula ( talk) 23:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Adding another article which quotes the Mexican Health Minister and pegs the mortality rate at possibly around 1.2%
Also adds information that around 25% of patients whom enter hospitals complaining of respiratory sickness, meet the criteria of similarity to possible H1N1 flu.
"Señaló que el índice de mortalidad pudiera ser de un 1.2% y explicó que de todos los pacientes que acuden a un hospital por una enfermedad respiratoria, sólo el 25% llena los criterios de presentar síntomas similares a los provocados por la influenza humana.
http://www.cnnexpansion.com/actualidad/2009/05/01/ssa-reporta-16-muertos-por-el-virus-h1n1
GaussianCopula ( talk) 23:44, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
its closer to 800 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.173.148.66 ( talk) 02:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea are not symptoms of this virus. One reporter reported that some spring breakers had that. Some spring breakers also drank alcohol and got traveler's influenza in addition to the virus. Please remove the extremely incorrect image. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.241.7 ( talk) 03:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The reference for this comment ( [23] in the 'Pandemic Concern' section) does state this, but it is wrong. The WHO statement that the reference article refers to states that most cases have been young, healthy adults, not most deaths.
Can someone please edit this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NoExaggeration ( talk • contribs) 13:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Generally speaking, as far as I'm aware, one cannot be a "young, healthy adult" if one has a fatal disease. Very sloppy writing... ╟─ Treasury Tag► contribs─╢ 07:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The BBC is reporting that the Mexican Secretariat of Health has revised suspected Swine Flu deaths down to 101. This should probably be updated in the article and table - Dumelow ( talk) 09:47, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, they have revised the probable death count to 101, but confirmed deaths in Mexico still sits at 16. This is according to both the latest WHO update and the BBC website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PixelPerfect ( talk • contribs) 09:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Doh! I must have been looking at the wrong column, I thought I read suspected deaths in Mexico were 162. The article was correct - Dumelow ( talk) 20:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I just read that 1303 cases were tested, from which 473 were confirmed to have the "human flu" (new name for the "swine flu"), and 19 of them died: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/595391.html Please update.-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 02:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There is much speculation that the virus in Mexico is a variant of the cases in the US and hence the lower mortality rate. However I have heard alternate speculation that it may because those in Mexico were not given vaccinations against bacterial infection as were those in the US and that the increased mortality is caused by pneumonia (after the viral infection) due to their increased susceptibility. Has anyone come across any evidence or articles to provide support for this argument? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.58.189.55 ( talk) 02:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I have speculated this from almost the beginning as I heard first time of it because our pediatrician told us something like that: The influenza vaccine in Europe won't protect much from influenza in Latin America. The same about the vaccine from the US. BUT Mexicans get the vaccine from the US (IF ANY). As far as I know there are hardly ever flu cases in Mexico (I don't have statistics that show it, would be interesting to see them, though), and even less often get vaccinated. But this is just my experience. No sources that prove it.-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 14:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I am wondering if we should remove the line which says:
"Although there have been reports of 152 "probable deaths"[83] in Mexico City and "more than 100 dead from swine flu",[84] the WHO had received reports of only 16 confirmed deaths total and explicitly denied the larger figure as of April 29.[85][86]"
The reason for this is that the two sources are BBC and The Herald Sun with information dated April 28 and 27, respectively.
If one looks at the same news sources as of May 2 and May 3, repectively, they have both updated information which is inconsistent with their early reports and consistent with the latest information which is being used. This is probably due to the initial reports being somewhat unrealible.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8030859.stm Dated May 2.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25421503-5005961,00.html Dated May 3.
GaussianCopula ( talk) 19:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Another proposed change is in the information regarding "The Mexican fatalities are alleged to be mainly young adults of 25 to 45". This should be changed to "mainly young female adults..."
This is consistent with the latest information whereby 14 of the 19 deaths are female and as stated by the Health Minister of Mexico.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jz6xx0ueubp7Yem-KVvQ957rIK2g
http://www.exonline.com.mx/diario/noticia/primera/pulsonacional/disipan_amenaza_del_virus/587894
GaussianCopula ( talk) 20:11, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Also to be included in the section is a reference regarding 17 of the 19 deaths having occurred in the Mexican Capital D.F. and its encompassing state Estado de Mexico.
http://www.prevencioninfluenza.gob.mx/
GaussianCopula ( talk) 22:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Latest information regarding any updates within the Spread within Mexico have ignored the information provided here and yet have updated the information with the following nugget of relevance:
"As part of an outrageous marketing strategy, a mascot for the outbreak was released in Mexico City on April 29, depicting a blue plush virus with black eyes in reference of H1N1; it was however discontinued on May 1. [77]"
I believe that information to be irrelevant to the issue at hand. I ask editors to remove it and address my comments in this section.
Thank you.
GaussianCopula ( talk) 02:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I just heard in the Mexican news that there are 22 (15 female and 7 male) confirmed deaths.Surely the figures will be updated on this web page as soon as possible: http://www.prevencioninfluenza.gob.mx/-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 01:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
There should be at least a paragraph talking about all the reactions and some cases of discrimination against Mexicans, such as this ones:
-- Aguilac ( talk) 20:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I think this is quite interesting, too, and should be added to the article because it shows one of many other reactions to the flu, such as media reports, donation, rising the level by WHO etc.-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 14:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Can someone change the map, because New Mexico has a confirmed case http://www.krqe.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.181.215 ( talk) 03:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
This is wierd! the death toll was use to be over 150: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LalqIYoarXE and they lowered it? Explain in the article why they lower it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeeV18 ( talk • contribs) 06:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Cuba has now ended all flights to Mexico to [25]!!!
And has Egypt just killed off 400,000 pigs [26]!-- 86.29.250.122 ( talk) 11:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Per the link above:
There are other dimensions to this story worth considering, but the most obvious one is the hunger factor that could be a direct byproduct of their actions. With pigs commonly weighing up to 500 pounds, the country could lose more lives to economic and hunger-related hardship than they do to the flu, and they already receive U.S. direct aid each year, some of which may now be needed for added reasons. -- Wikiwatcher1 ( talk) 17:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
See- User talk:86.29.246.35.-- 86.29.248.143 ( talk) 13:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
"God's vengeance on the infidels"...or whatever people mean when they say things like that...
...if someone wants to throw it into a section. Might just be weak research by The Washington Post. Gwopy ( talk) 12:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
It's a good angel on the case and is well worth mentioning!-- 86.29.248.143 ( talk) 13:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The section "Government actions against pigs and pork" should be changed to include the infection of a pig farm, at its subsequent quarantine. 76.66.202.139 ( talk) 14:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
While I agree that under normal, non-emergency times, certain facts should be put in the body instead of in the lead's introduction, I think an exception should be considered. The sentences below were removed from the lead since the subject is covered within the body. I'd vote to put them back -either as is, abbreviated, paraphrased, or even expanded - due the the timely importance of this kind of information. Not everyone can cut through the details of this article and we know that most visitors will not go much beyond a lead. And since pigs can't fly or escape potential slaughter by uninformed and panicky populations, I think we should reconsider.
Any other thoughts? -- Wikiwatcher1 ( talk) 19:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
How about: "Although some influenza strains are easily spread between humans and other species, the influenza virus is killed by normal cooking procedures, so there is no risk of infection from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products."-- Pontificalibus ( talk) 20:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and put a sentence at the end of the intro, feel free to change it around. -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 20:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I have twice reverted edits removing reference to the Hong Kong flu pandemic in the intro. I think it is very useful to show people what the last pandemic was like in the intro, so they can quickly get an idea of what this is all about. However I don't want to revert this removal again and wonder what other people think -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 19:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I would like to report an Error, I don't have a wikipedia account so i am unable to correct it myself. in the table showing the ammount of H1N1 infections by country, the entry for New Zealand in not currently correct. the table says that there are 360 suspected cases, but according to the latest offical release from the New Zealand ministry of heath there are 89 suspected cases. There are 360 people in isolation but this figure includes anybody who may have been in contact with the diease, the people in isolation are not all showing symtoms, it is only a precaution. Suspected cases being people who have unconfirmed H1N1 symtoms, and probable cases being confirmed as type A influenza though the strain is not confirmed. could someone with an account please correct this?, its bugging me.
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/influenza-a-h1n1-update-twenty-030509?Open <- Lastest Ministry of health report - offical count is shown on that page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.109.56 ( talk) 22:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
One swine flu case was confirmed in China. Here is the source on CNN - http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/03/swine.flu/index.html#cnnSTCOther2 -- Novis-M ( talk) 01:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
This included under Hong Kong. -- 62.69.130.82 ( talk) 10:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Though there are no confirmed cases found in India still, but in a country like India where the seasonal changes are very rapid and hygiene conditions are not at its best, it is vulnerable to spread this once hit. Further to that the Monsoon in India can also spread it if it reaches here by that time, as in Monsoon without any such influenza virus also most of the Indins suffer through cold and such small problems.
Enough care and awareness should be spread across different parts of society to ensure that this danger does not hit India. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.36.216.71 ( talk) 04:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:2009-2010 flu pandemic table/Archive 3#Synthesis, where a discussion is underway about the sourcing and figures used in this and similar articles and tables. Your input is welcomed. —/ Mendaliv/ 2¢/ Δ's/ 09:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
suggest keep name with "swine flu" for now and escalate this naming discussion to get people who have been discussing naming issues for some time to come up with a more clarified consensus, perhaps using this specific naming discussion as an example to develop consensus on. This is because it seems like naming issues like "swine flu" vs "H1N1" are symptomatic of a much bigger and heavily discussed issue as follows [ note especially the "Oh boy, here we go again" :) ]
* WP:NAME says to favor easily recognized names for general audiences over vocabulary of specialists. * WP:MEDMOS#Naming conventions says exactly the opposite - to favor specilist vocabulary over commonly used names.
Which takes precendence? Why? The conflict should be resolved, or at least documented with usual procedure for dealing with it (precedence rules, etc.) Thanks. Zodon (talk) 08:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh boy, here we go again. For extended discussion on this matter, see Archive 11, starting from this section and continuing on down and into Archive 12. Also see pretty much all of WT:FLORA. My personal view on this is that WP:NC (this policy) takes precedence, since it represents community-wide consensus, and that other specialized naming conventions should be changed to recognize this. Often, with specialized projects, there IS no easily recognized name; millions of kinds of flora/fauna/fungus/disease/insert specialized topic here are not commonly known, and thus the "most commonly used name" is the one used by experts in the field. So the majority of the time, the MEDMOS naming conventions are probably correct. However, all naming conventions should contain an exception that if a particular subject is known to the general public by a name different than what experts call it, and this name is widely known, then the layman's term should be favored over the expert's. So, I would disagree with the example given at the top of the MEDMOS naming conventions: Myocardial infarction should redirect to Heart attack, not the other way around. WP:Naming conventions is policy, while all of the WP:MOS pages are just guidelines.--Aervanath (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.17.145.129 ( talk)
WHO director Margaret Chan refers to it as such: [29]
For the first time in history, we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real-time.
WHO will be tracking the pandemic at the epidemiological, clinical, and virological levels.
The biggest question, right now, is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start?
JCDenton2052 ( talk) 21:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
If the WHO is now labeling this a pandemic, then we have to as well. Subjective severity or where it ends up doesn't matter, and is WP:OR. Note that I protected ALL of these articles earlier against non-admin moves as possible vandal targets. Once we have confirmation and broad consensus, any admin can move these--I just did all the ones linked off off the outbreak template which needs renaming then as well. We have a LOT of valid redirects here as well--all of them will need to be redone. Since (as ever with these articles) this is time sensitive and literally is a black and white binary decision, let's just poll and do this efficiently. rootology ( C)( T) 21:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The statement by the World Organization for Animal Health that this strain has not been isolated from swine anywhere [30] persuades me that it is not swine influenza. Rather, it is human influenza that has acquired elements of avian and swine influenza. Also, given that at the time of discovery the strain was already in circulation in both Mexico and the US, I am in favor of calling it 2009 North American flu outbreak. -- Una Smith ( talk) 02:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, let's change the name. WHO has changed it, and clearly after Egypt it's obvious "Swine Flu" is just causing a lot of misunderstandings out there. I think it's time we follow suit. -- 24.87.88.162 ( talk) 19:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
However people are calling it swine flu and that is the headline that people will look under. Johnpacklambert ( talk) 03:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I should have said article people are looking for. I was preoccupied with other things and did not edit sufficiently. However, I have come up with an argument for keeping the "swine" in the name. The article is at Battle of Bunker Hill even though it was fought at Breed's Hill. The issue is not accuracy, but common usage. Johnpacklambert ( talk) 04:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Currently people is calling it swine influneza, but in textbooks it will be called novel human influenza. Therefore we should follow WHO naming right now, in order to prevent future problems. Konegistiger ( talk) 05:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
A NCBI blast search of the genomes sequenced so far by the CDC and WHO labs, the large majority of similar sequences are swine influenza A genomes. WHO wants this influenza renamed not for scientific reasons but for political ones. The sequences for the 8 genes 6 show most simalarity to swine flu one to a virus found in ducks and one in a human from Wisconsin in 2003. The two non swine sequences are anotated as being similar to swine sequences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.211.124.126 ( talk) 09:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia have a big naming trouble, wikipedia have 2 articles/names/topics ( Swine flu AND 2009 swine flu outbreak), CNN, BBC, etc just have one : Swine flu.
People aren't getting the information they are searching for. A solution is NEED. Yug (talk) 11:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I initially went to the other page, but when I saw that the current strain was in this article, I came here. However, I did want a little info on swine flu in general and it worked. The templates work, and we have to remember that although some people think it is the end of the world, it is not, and in five years a general overview of swine flu will be more searched for than the 2009 variety. Johnpacklambert ( talk) 04:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
[31] WHO stopped using this term to protect pigs from being slaughtered, like done in Egypt already. Maybe Wikipedia should too? Just a thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.191.179.57 ( talk) 17:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Searching google news for flu, brings up "swine flu", so that appears to still be the common name. http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&q=flu Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 18:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree In addition to the reasons cited above, President Obama carefully called it "the H1N1 virus."
I suggest using the name "Chimeric Flu" as it is a mixture of avian, human and swine strains. Calling it H1N1 like WHO does is confusing, as there already is a Type A H1N1 going around this year (the one that is Tamiflu resistant). CDC seems to be moving toward H1N1 (2009) which is a bit better as the H1N1 from last season was discovered in a previous year. In a non-politically correct world, it would clearly be called Mexican Flu, since that is where it seems to have originated. Would it be more PC to call it Aztec Flu?
The geographic region is the naming convention established for prior flu pandemics. Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, Fujian flu, and so on. It would be consistent to name this one the 2009 Mexican flu. Otherwise in the historical literature the sequence of names for pandemics throughout history will be inconsistent and confusing if they switch back and forth between geographic labels and medical terminology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.228.195.206 ( talk) 02:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Egypt has two main conditions which led to the decision to slaughter the pigs 1-pigs are not bred in farms but they just live between piles of garbage, so if one gets infected it would be difficult to know or too late not as in as in case of Alberta Canada where Canadian officials say pigs in the province of Alberta have been infected with the new swine flu virus and are under quarantine. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hZVkRqV2uZVim0TRk5R1ZBfovTCAD97UDDC2
2-egypt is already struggling with avian flue which is there for about 3 years now and the pigs play the middle ground between avian and human flu allowing the virus to change from avian to another virus which can pass to human easily or even to change to a human to human transferable virus Sonatasameh ( talk) 02:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
30 April 2009 -- From today, WHO will refer to the new influenza virus as influenza A(H1N1). [32]-- zayani ( talk) 19:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Jesus Christ, we are just having a vote about "Abandoning the name Swine Flu" about 3 inches up the page. Can we give it a break for a while? Does anyone ever actually read WP:COMMONAME? -- Pontificalibus ( talk)
"In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative" -- #Per WP:COMMONAME: -- 24.87.88.162 ( talk) 20:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it possible to "move" it to different names with reference to one main article (which should have the most used name)? E.g. "North American influenza" and "Mexican flu" refer to "2009 swine flu outbreak" (just an example!) so that people can find the information they are looking for either way. I mean, that's all about: Finding the info they are looking for. For finding the "right name" of the main article, I prefer to wait and observe a little more how media handles and calls the topic.-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 22:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Came across this article which might give us another reason to hold off for a while.
"Swine flu name change? Flu genes spell pig" (4/30/09)-- Wikiwatcher1 ( talk) 22:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I propose freezing the name for a few days. Yes, the WHO did say to stop using the term swine flu. But people are still calling it that, and probably will continue calling it that forever. As swine flu is what most people will search for in the search bar, we need the article to be right where they think it will be. Until we can get sources of common people calling it something other than swine flu the name should be stay as it is.
Drew R. Smith ( talk) 23:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
support - this sounds like a good idea, can definitely wait a day or two to see what happens, the setting up of redirects also sound like a good idea - so no matter which of the main names a person uses in the search box they go to the article. The name is being pushed from swine flu and WHO etc might be successful in getting name changed over time. Its good that the main names for the new flu are in the introduction as the many names for the new flu seems to be becoming an aspect of the new flu. Anyway as long as when someone puts "swine flu" or other major common name for the new flu in the search box they come to this article that is what i would suggest is the most important thing, second is what the article is actually called - though of course the effort to get the actual article name to be accurate and precise is good stuff. Sure change the name for the article about new flu if necessary if wiki rules, references and editors follow. Such a hot topic in such a hotly debated article could use a little cooling off [though maybe not on the talk page :) ]. P.S. kudos to all the editors working so hard on this article, its great and readers like me appreciate it even if you may not hear thank yous directly from us very much —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.17.145.209 ( talk) 02:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Just a comment that keeping the page name consistent with what people will search for in the search bar is not an argument that forces us into keeping this page name, since that issue can be dealt with via a redirect. Sancho 00:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I believe WHO officially named the disease to "Influenza A (H1N1)". Kadrun ( talk) 00:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Everyone on google news is still calling it swine flu so a name change is inappropriate. http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&q=flu . Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 11:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Can you imagine a commercial break during the nightly news this coming fall?
This ALMOST sounds like a zombie outbreak... 11:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Swine flu | 2009 swine flu outbreak | |
---|---|---|
Link is on the Main Page | no | yes |
Visits by day | 1.3 million wiki visitors/day, the most view, visitor all come here ! | 0.4 million / day, less than 1/3rd of the visitors come here |
Talk page's activity by day | little activity, nobody here, just some wiki-users / day | very active, everybody here, several dozens of wiki-users / day |
(Main) Topic | formerly: all strains of influenza in swine since decades. soon: the current 'swine flu' outbreak |
formerly: the current 'swine flu' outbreak soon: the current 'swine flu' outbreak |
trouble : if we do nothing, the 2 articles are becoming copies. Solution: choice better names to differentiate more clearly the 2 articles. |
Yug (talk) 01:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Move to 2009 swine influenza outbreak? - down load | sign! 02:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
As of Thursday April 30th the WHO has officially ceased referring to this outbreak as "swine flu." This follows on the heels of Egypt's ill conceived decision to cull their swine. The A(H1N1) outbreak is not even transmitted by swine, but has a human to human transmission as well as containing avian and human influenza DNA. It may be a bit late in the game, but I think that Wikipedia should follow international convention in this matter and more appropriately rename the article "2009 influenza A (H1N1) outbreak"
The WHO site link is below and although it uses 'swineflu' in the address there is no longer any mention of it on their page and a statement declaring all future references to be to the A(H1N1) outbreak.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html Ibrmrn ( talk) 13:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The official name is now influenza A (H1N1). Who thinks the name of the article should be changed? Use agree or disagree marks!-- Ken Durham ( talk) 13:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
As of this signing I count 16 agree and 12 disagree. Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 23:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Please discuss rather than vote. Voting is evil. hmwith τ 21:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The Manual of Style with regard to medicine, if it's not already been pointed out. The naming conventions state:
The article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name rather than the lay term (common, unscientific, and/or slang name) or a historical eponym that has been superseded.
This is the textbook definition. "Swine flu" has been superseded as the scientific name, at least with regards to WHO. Whether it's H1N1 or H1N1(A) is debatable, but given the MOS, we shouldn't have it at "swine flu" anymore. Sceptre ( talk) 08:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Come on, Wikipedia, follow your own policies and LEAVE IT AS IS. The virus may be the same old one which has caused concern as in previous outbreaks, but this IS the 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak, and thats how it will be commonly know 20 years from now just as it is today. And with all due respect to the not-a-vote lobby, this is the same tired policy/weak excuse which is trotted out when people want something change in contrary to consensus or when consensus has yet to be reached. Take the time to *read* the votes and you will see there is substantive discussion attached to those yeas and nays. Personally I dont understand why this has to be so political. The virus is H1N1 or whatever. There is already an article about that - H1N1. But that is not what this article is about. This article is about the current outbreak which everyone recognizes as Swine Flu. That's just the way it is and no wikipedia policy is going to change that. The origin of the name and it basis in truth is irrelevant. If name is misleading then add a sentence to the into explaining the origin of the name - this is wikipedia and YOU can do it yourself. Just because the WHO decides to use different terminology in their own press releases and the american's new messiah also calls it so to appease the pork lobby does not change facts. The korean war was officially call a 'police action' by the self-proclaimed authorities, but that doesn't mean we bow to the political winds and use such names for wikipedia titles. Read the comments, acknowledge the lack of consensus, be professional, and leave the title alone until the dust settles. 208.103.249.128 ( talk) 15:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Apologies 208.103... I did not intend to be unprofessional. If anything, I think your response is an unnecessary escalation and actually more unprofessional than my original post unintentially was. I actually did read the comments in the voting before posting, as I read this entire talk page (and most of the archives). I also read the various Wikipedia policies that were cited, and MOS:MED seems most relevant. I apologize if I was slightly too strong in suggesting the change happen sooner rather than later, but it appears that most of the votes above that you cite where given before any mention of MOS:MED. I therefore assumed that they were unaware of that information and urged prompt reconsideration. I did not, as you did, assume that they simply ignored information and discussion. Is there anything that I said that said otherwise? And, by the way, if we went by your standard about how it will commonly be known 20 years from now, we should retitle the AIDS article as Gay-related immune deficiency, as it was originally known. I'm not trying to be funny; I'm just following the logic. Again, I apologize for any misunderstandings, but I am saddened that you felt the need to escalate, particularly if you feel so strongly that policies are in your favor already. You might have another perspective on this question if you were a pork farmer. But hey, I'm happy to have cheaper pork to buy for the next few months, so I guess there's another benefit for some of us at least. And not that anecdotal data matters anymore than voting in Wikipedia policy, but on my campus, all official references to the virus are H1N1, and "swine flu" seems to have become something of a jocular way to refer to it, since everyone knows it's technically wrong. 66.30.15.98 ( talk) 23:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I've been hearing less and less people actually call it "swine flu". This may no longer be the " common name". Surprisingly, I've heard students around my university actually calling it H1N1 influenza A, while discussing it. This may slowly be becoming the most common name, among informed people, at least. I've only heard "swine flu" used recently when joking about it. This is all WP:OR, of course, as a judgment of a common name would have to be. Thoughts? hmwith τ 16:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Why sould « Henry Niman of Recombinomics»'s opinion - note the red links - should be weighted against that of the World Health Organization, World Organization for Animal Health, and several governments? Not that it should not, I don't know, but why should I, a reader, care about what Mr. Niman says? - Nabla ( talk) 20:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
i've just seen a developing story from cnn, they show more evidence towards the threat level rising to 5 within the next few hours and patient zero has been discovered as a five year old boy from Mexico. Since Obama's last visit to Mexico it has been reported he has contracted swine flu. [1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.0.250 ( talk) 18:22, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
--If the WHO announces a level 5 it's rumored most U.S. schools will shut down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCoolOne99 ( talk • contribs) 19:28, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
In the first paragraph of the introduction, it says "Despite the scale of the alert, the WHO stated on April 29 that the majority of people infected with the virus make a full recovery without need of medical attention or antiviral drugs." "with the virus make a full recovery" doesn't make sense; does it mean "with the virus will make" or "with the virus have made"? I checked the cited source, but it didn't clarify from what I could tell. Cordovao ( talk) 19:57, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Please do not adjust the article to say level 5 has been reached without citing a reliable source. We know the level has been reached, but please cite to a reliable source nonetheless. Thank you in advance. Cordovao ( talk) 20:11, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
CNN has it. Cite error: There are <ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page). I'm not great with editing so I'll leave it up to some of the more technically inclined people to do it. I'm more here for fact checking.
Pharmaediting11 (
talk) 20:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Its important to remember that the WHO director is the director of an international health organization. Her comments are primarialy directed at national leaders; national health organizations; and medical centers. While we record her comments in an encylopedia nature and the press covers it, her comments are not directly intedended for private individuals. Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, and prepare your zombie defense kits. Its not yet time to start looting or shooting people in the head. For most of us, nothing actually changes from 4 to 5 to 6, only the wikipedia article. -- PigFlu Oink ( talk) 21:35, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
RE: Pandemic_Severity_Index#Guidelines
I am confused, this section of wikipedia only goes up to level 5, and the graph, from the CDC, only goes up to level 5, quoting the CDC:
Can someone clarify in the Pandemic_Severity_Index article? Ikip ( talk) 21:41, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The fact that it traveled through a bird and then a pig is meaningless now that the flu is spreading person to person.
Currently it is not yet categorized as pandemic, thus keep it named outbreak but please remove the work swine from this article. Mineralè ( talk) 21:10, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Is there a place to report new cases, or do we just sit back and wait for it to work its way through the system. I'm referring to http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/042909kvue_Lucy_Reed-cb.26f0453.html (Austin, TX school closed because of probable case) Victor Engel ( talk) 21:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
WHO Phase 5 does not represent a Pandemic, but a likely Pandemic.
Thus I shall be removing erroneous references describing the current WHO classification as a Pandemic. Please comment as appropriate. - Rushyo Talk 22:31, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
There appears to be some confusion over what the WHO alert scale is actually about. Having worked in developing software for managing pandemics within the British NHS, I've done plenty of extended reading to familiarise myself with national and international procedures regarding pandemic continuity planning.
The WHO system is an 'alert scale'. It represents the planning stages to be utilised in individual country's continuity plans for dealing with a pandemic. As the stage increases, each country is expected to adopt a different set of procedures relevant to that stage of a pandemic. However, the confusion therein lies in the fact that WHO clarification includes planning for a pandemic. WHO Phase 5 refers to an 'imminent pandemic'. It is assumed, at this stage, that a pandemic is about to occur and that countries should plan as though one were inevitable. However, it does not represent an actual, on-going pandemic.
You have to bear in mind that the WHO's scale is not for general consumption. It is aimed at informing branches of national governments which measures of their comprehensive (or otherwise) plans they should be enacting at any given moment. Notice how the text is written and who the intended audience is.
The WHO, confusingly, uses the term 'pandemic' in many different contexts. The outbreak itself is not labelled as a pandemic, but the procedures being enacted, and the status assigned to them, are those of a pandemic (literally: pertaining to a future pandemic). Phase 5 refers to a localised series of community level outbreaks. By its very nature, a localised outbreak cannot be a pandemic. It would be a contradiction.
Addendum: "An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness." [5]
"The World Health Organization has raised its alert to level five - one short of a full-blown pandemic." - [6]
Both the WHO and the BBC refer to Stage 5 of the plan (that image aside) as an epidemic leading up to a pandemic, not otherwise.
For the record, text is always more authoritative than an associated 'dumbed down' image. - Rushyo Talk 23:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Discussion of how WP:NPOV governs article content |
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Some persons think that the flu pandemic is a lie and that the frequency of deaths during this period is the normal frequency of people who die of pneumonia. I do not think so, but I also consider that we should give a place for conspiracy theories if we want to present the multiple points of view of this outbreak.-- Fixvon ( talk) 23:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
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In the intro someone put many schools closed and I changed it to a few. Then it was changed to numerous schools, then I changed it what I counted from the references to be 18. What do you think is the right thing to do? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 02:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, apparently 1 in NYC and one in Onondaga County (Central New York State). That is all I know of in NYS. I am probably wrong, there could be more. BFritzen ( talk) 02:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The caption to the pig image says "Pigs can harbor influenza viruses adapted to humans and others adapted to birds, allowing the viruses to exchange genes and create a pandemic strain."
The last five words of that sentence are unnecessary, speculative and alarmist. 58.165.254.91 ( talk) 03:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE53N22820090430
Just out. rootology ( C)( T) 05:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
President Correa issued today the order, even though there are no possible cases there. Source in Spanish, from La Hora-- Fryant ( talk) 11:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I hear Japan was calling it the 'North American Flu' or something. Should they be at the top as an alternate name with the others? Lemniwinks ( talk) 22:05, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
Shouldn't this article include (mayhap I have yet to see it) the normal death toll of influenza? From WHO:
In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections. Hospitalization and deaths mainly occur in high-risk groups (elderly, chronically ill). Although difficult to assess, these annual epidemics are thought to result in between three and five million cases of severe illness and between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. Most deaths currently associated with influenza in industrialized countries occur among the elderly over 65 years of age.
So, 250 000/ 365 = 685 500 000/ 365 = 1370. So, according to statistics, between 685 to 1,370 people die from influenza every day.... is this really all that different. Shouldn't we put forth the "disclaimer" that strains of influenza cause X amount of deaths every year/ or day at the top of the article in order to put this into perspective? BFritzen ( talk) 02:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I think that is a good idea!-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 02:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Not a disclaimer per se but I did include the WHO quote to give unbiased perspective, just straight forward. I "block text"ed it in order to have it stand out a bit, but I think that it only adds to what we are trying to accomplish. Reading those first paragraphs (as a current event) may prove to be unintentional sensationalism (and only because it is current). I think the paragraph I added puts perspective. Oh and to continue on your train of thought: do we pile the bodies next to all the AIDS and SARS victims? I remember when AIDS was first talked about and the sensationalism that made us think bodies would be lining the street, "The new Black Plague" they called it. (I am not making fun of the victims just our ability to sensationalize.) BFritzen ( talk) 03:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The Prior influenza season section has already had these statistics for a number of days, and supplies context effectively as the first section. Wikipedia articles make little allowance for the level of excitement or firmness of opinion in readers. (Editors are another matter…) Intros need to concisely include the significance of the topic, which currently in this case comes from the warnings of major health authorities, the actions of various countries, and the wide media coverage. -- Zigger «º» 03:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I moved the quote to the middle of the introduction and (right after the explanation that it is a new virus). So it is sort here is the new virus. Here is what the old virus does. We don't know what the new virus does and here is what is going on. I think it helps the readability. Hdstubbs ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC).
All this panic is senseless.Its far more likely to gain in alottery, than to die of this flu. Agre22 ( talk) 03:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)agre22
See "Alaska included as confirmed death?" for relevent discussion. I will begin working on a new map now, seeing as there were no objections. I will post the finished product in a new section before adding it to the article. Drew R. Smith ( talk) 02:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The second sentence of the lead currently reads that the outbreak is not swine flu, but it is my understanding that in fact the flu is a mixture of several virii viruses and is at least partially swine. Is this correct and if so should this sentence be modified?
Oren0 (
talk) 03:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/suspected-swine-flu-cases-rise-104-2691146
16 confirmed. A further 104 are suspected cases with another 111 in quarantine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.136.128.201 ( talk) 05:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
A note on the 16 'confirmed' cases. 3 people in NZ have tested positive for swine flu. Another 13 have tested positive for influenza type A, and have been in and infected area (Mexico) or have been in close contact with a confirmed or probable case. These are often referred to as having swine flu, but have never had a definitive test (only influenza type A).
I think for the purposes of the table, it should use the NZ ministry of health statistics of 3 confirmed, 13 probable and 63 suspected ,or perhaps 76 probable and suspected in the ‘other suspected’ column of the table.
The following link may be more authoritative that news websites.
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/mexican-swine-influenza-update-fourteen-300409?Open —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.147.198 ( talk) 09:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The new website has the exact same information. It has been updated... 16 confirmed, 111 are probable and 121 are suspected.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/suspected-swine-flu-cases-rise-104-2691146 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.136.128.201 ( talk) 10:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Why is a world view important?!?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.16.227.140 ( talk) 12:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I included this and even asked opinion in Facts Vs Fears (or whatever I called it.) Does anyone think this should be removed, kept, or edited? BFritzen ( talk) 13:05, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
el:Νέος ιός γρίπης —Preceding unsigned comment added by Swineinfluenza ( talk • contribs) 13:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Not being able to edit the article makes me feel alienated from Wikipedia. Better accept the risk of a few trolls messing up rather than alienate your users. Swineinfluenza ( talk) 13:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Is the response to this by the media something we should consider adding as a new section to the article? The media is giving this a lot press and I think that it might be something worth mentioning. I don't know if there are sources that we can use on the matter, but it's something to look at. My reason being that given the speed at which information can be disseminated in today's world essentially allows for almost everyone to know everything instantly. I think there could be a focus on whether the media is helpful or hurtful (spreading information or spreading panic) and especially its impact on helping people/organizations/governments coordinate their efforts so that the spread can be minimized. I'm having a bit of trouble articulating exactly what I'm thinking, but I think that you get the idea. The media will likely end up playing a big role in this (especially if this turns into a full blown pandemic) so I think that we should give some sort of mention to it here. What do you guys think? Pharmaediting11 ( talk) 14:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The Smithfield/Granjas Carroll operation mentioned in the press is annotated in Google Earth, and clearly visible as a large number of CAFOs near Perote, Veracruz [11], but it is five towns north of La Gloria, Veracruz. There is a CAFO one town west of La Gloria with an obvious sewage lagoon. [12] Interestingly, there is another group of somewhat similar buildings even closer to La Gloria, but these have no sewage lagoon. [13] Since even the Michigan Sierra Club describes CAFOs with drainage tiles running into local streams, it is interesting that these buildings seem to have a wash leading into a dry riverbed which I think flows past La Gloria. Has anyone spotted mention of these closer farms in the Mexican press? Mike Serfas ( talk) 15:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The purpose of Wikipedia is for encyclopedic articles, not news articles. I would say IMHO that the news articles referenced are not verifiable information, but fluid information that is likely to change. They are written with less stringent controls as would be published, peer-reviewed articles. A better place for all of this fluid and dynamically and increasingly "speculative" info should be placed in Wikinews, and not Wikipedia. We should be posting only verifiable information, which would include laboratory-confirmed cases and confirmed cause of death due to swine flu. Other information is just not encyclopedic. Flipper9 ( talk) 16:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC) — Flipper9 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
To be clear about the inappropriate tag I added to the main article: all of the "suspected cases", "probable cases" and "probable deaths" are unverifiable information. Just because a news article says it, that is more speculative information and has no basic in something that can be verified. For example, news articles are regularly updated, retracted, and sometimes based on the flimsiest of evidence. The information gleaned from the popular press IMHO is not verifiable in the strictest sense. Yes; you can lookup the article and see that some guy at a news organization wrote it, but it's not verifiable by any authority. The only verifiable information is confirmed cases of infection and confirmed cases of death. The other columns of possible or probable cases and deaths is not something you would expect to find in an encyclopedia article; but in a dynamically updated news article or site, hence why that unverifiable information should be placed in Wikinews or some other wiki site. Flipper9 ( talk) 16:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Since 206 editors have worked on Template:2009_swine_flu_outbreak_table, listing the presummed cases, and you are the first editor to bring this up, I don't think there is any conensus for change. Ikip ( talk) 17:58, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Flipper, While, I think we all agree with what you are saying, there already was a tag that this article refers to a "Current Event" and as such, the article can change rapidly. I think that is enough of a statement to cover what you two are disputing. Further, DON"T EDIT WAR (Not aimed at FLIPER per se) But I could see one brewing. BFritzen ( talk) 18:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V#Reliable_sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:V#Questionable_sources
While a popular news article (which all of the "suspected" and "unconfirmed" numbers are referenced to) can be reliable, it's only reliable when they are reporting news from an authority in the subject. The purpose of the popular news is to generate articles that get people to read their articles, so they impart sensationalism to get people to read them. They include hearsay, unchecked "facts", and information that is not verifiable. You cannot verify that someone has the swine flu disease (which this article is about) if the data is unverified, i.e. someone thinks that someone has the disease. Suspected cases are not notable, and do not fulfill this criterion for inclusion into Wikipedia. Flipper9 ( talk) 18:21, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't understand your point about the suspected cases being impossible to verify. That is like saying that it is impossible to verify that people suspect OJ Simpson committed murder when he wasn't convicted. The verification of the suspicion is the news article that identifies the suspicion. I don't think that having suspected cases is against wikipedia policy at all. It is not impossible to verify that they are suspected. We are using the most reliable source (the news media)available at this time. If you want up the level of verification in the table by using the most reliable source about current suspected cases then I think that is correct, just as we do any piece of information in Wikipedia.
And in the future, the article on the issue, will almost certainly have information regarding the number suspected cases and the perception of suspected cases and how that influenced the event. While, we can't see how it will influence this event, we can (and should) include that the suspected cases exist. Hdstubbs ( talk) 19:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it the values of zero that are unverifiable and unreferenced? (This comment could probably be on the table's talk page, but it seems appropriate in this thread.) -- Zigger «º» 20:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Per todays webcast: Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rich Besser, says they have rolled out test kits to NewYork and Califonia: They expect to be able to roll out testing kits to other states on Monday. Prior, testing was only avaliable at CDC headquaters in Atlanta. The new kits are expected to be able to speed up the testing process. Dr Besser also said that Mexico has just now been able to do their own testing. -- PigFlu Oink ( talk) 17:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Leads to American Idol's finalist Adam Lamebert's fan site. Another reason behind Wikipedia being nothing more than a synonym for retarded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.179.74.165 ( talk) 17:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The page is getting awfully long again. I know there is a bot that does this, but should we manually archive some in the meantime, like we did before? hmwith τ 18:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Since Twitter is a Social Networking/ Micro Blogging Site, does can response on Twitter be considered as Media Response as opposed the Public Response?
I think that there should be a clear line between Media Response and Public response, with Media reponse being limited to the response of the professional journalists, as opposed to reponse of amateur journalists/general public, which should be considered public reponse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chanhee920 ( talk • contribs) 18:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree -- Ken Durham ( talk) 18:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
It's been deleted, although should a Public Response section be created, I think this would be well worth adding.
Chanhee920 (
talk) 18:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/5236447/Swine-flu-Twitter-used-to-spread-news-around-world.html http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/27/swine.flu.twitter/index.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdstubbs ( talk • contribs) 20:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
In the cases by country table, It is shown 159 confirmed cases in México., That is very far from the official number.
that number 195 is not supported by the link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6189805.ece
"The number of suspected swine flu deaths in Mexico rose again last night to 159"
Note the difference than "suspected" than "confirmed"
The official number is provided by WHO, and Mexico has 26 confirmed
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_04_29/en/index.html
"29 April 2009 -- The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 18:00 GMT, 29 April 2009, nine countries have officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 91 laboratory confirmed human cases, with one death. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceglez ( talk • contribs) 18:17, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Do you mean to say that the information is inaccurate? Or did you really mean not precise?
Its difficult to be precise with matters such as this.If you mean inaccurate, then just edit it with what you believe is correct (although I recommend the date updated on your source and the cited source before you do this). Chanhee920 ( talk) 18:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
A few hours ago the mexican Health Secretary announced that there were 260 confirmed cases. Isn't that offcial information?? The table showed that value a little ago, why did you replace it with 97 again? Rodcontr ( talk) 22:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
People keep chopping names based on their personal opinions without bothering to research them properly. North American influenza appears to be the most common to go although it appears widely used particularly by pork and food industry source. A Google News search, which I don't particularly like but seems our best option at the moment, reveals the least used term is probably swine-origin influenza which may have been used by the CDC for a while but appears to have been abandoned in favour of 2009 H1N1 flu. If we do want to remove one this is probably the first to go. Either that or we leave it be for now and wait until things settle down. Nil Einne ( talk) 18:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I have removed "swine-origin influenza". Firstly, in the citation given it is not called that but "Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1)". I can't find anyone calling it "swine-origin influenza". Secondly "Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1)" is just a more descriptive form of "Influenza A (H1N1)" which is already listed, and not a seperate name that needs to clog up the first paragraph. -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 20:10, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Names were swiped clean, I undid it. BFritzen ( talk) 20:26, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
North American Influenza is not in common use, but it is only a proposed name. I would consider it political maneuvering to give readers the impression that this strain "is known as" North American Influenza, when in fact, only the other three names have gained support for common use. Additionally, the largest region of the North American continent does not have a large number of flu cases during the intial outbreak. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fpbear ( talk • contribs) 02:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Reminder: Some web pages used as references are frequently updated, especially primary sources, and others are not permanent. These types of URLs are more common in current event articles. The Webcite Consortium [15] is one provider of third-party archiving, and identifies Wikipedia as a Level-2 member. [16] This is a call to archive reference web page content that might otherwise be lost leading to verification problems and incorrect OR challenges/defences. -- Zigger «º» 20:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not much a computer nerd. Can you explain this in English? Thanks :) Hdstubbs ( talk) 20:23, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Lol :) Thanks a lot for the plain English. So how do you use this webcite thingy? Just make sure that we use permanent urls? (Is that right?) What if we can't find them? Hdstubbs ( talk) 20:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
How is it possible that confirmed cases are higher than probable? That doesn't make sense to me. Example Canada 34[7] 22[8] Yogiudo ( talk) 22:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
These are mutually exclusive categories. As people are tested and found not to have this strain, they are excluded from all 4 categories. Thus, the number of confirmed cases can only grow, but the numbers of probable and suspected cases can (and do) grow and shrink. -- Una Smith ( talk) 22:41, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
sure svg is the standard but some people (like me) who like to be informed dont have a super computer to open a huge svg file, why not use a hi-resolution ong instead? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.6.195.131 ( talk) 06:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Per WP:LEAD: "As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than four paragraphs." While this is a general guideline, I don't see a compelling reason to exempt this article. Other broader and more important topics (e.g. DNA, Virus) are able to summarize their articles' content in significantly fewer words. Emw2012 ( talk) 14:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
The 2009 swine flu outbreak is an epidemic that began in April 2009 with a new strain of influenza virus. The new strain is commonly called swine flu, but some parties object to the name and it has also been referred to as Mexican flu,[50] swine-origin influenza,[51] North American influenza,[52] and 2009 H1N1 flu.[50] The outbreak is believed to have started in March 2009.[53] Local outbreaks of an influenza-like illness were first detected in three areas of Mexico, but the virus responsible was not clinically identified as a new strain until April 24, 2009. Following the identification, its presence was soon confirmed in various Mexican states and in Mexico City. Within days, isolated cases (and suspected cases) were identified elsewhere in Mexico, the U.S., and several other Northern Hemisphere countries.
The new strain is an apparent reassortment of four strains of influenza A virus subtype H1N1.[57] Analysis at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified the four component strains as one endemic in humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine).[57] One swine strain was widespread in the United States, the other in Eurasia.[57] The common human H1N1 influenza virus affects millions of people every year, according to the WHO, "In annual influenza epidemics 5-15% of the population are affected with upper respiratory tract infections...which results in between 250 000 and 500 000 deaths every year around the world. "[58] In industrialized countries most of these deaths occur in those 65 or older.[58]
In late April both the United Nations WHO and the U.S. CDC expressed serious concern about the situation, as it had the potential to become a flu pandemic due to the novelty of the influenza strain, its transmission from human to human, and the unusually high mortality rate in Mexico.[59] On April 25, 2009, the WHO formally determined the situation to be a "public health emergency of international concern", with knowledge lacking in regard to "the clinical features, epidemiology, and virology of reported cases and the appropriate responses".[60] By April 28,
the new strain was confirmed to have spread to Spain, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Israel, and the virus was suspected in many other nations, with a total of over 3,000 candidate cases, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to change its pandemic alert phase to "Phase 5",[54][55][56] which denotes "widespread human infection". Governments around the world have expressed concern over this virus and are monitoring the situation closely.
Mexico's schools, universities, and all public events will be closed from April 24, 2009 to May 6, 2009.[61][62] On April 27, 2009, a few schools in the U.S. closed due to confirmed cases in students.[63][64] Two days later the action extended to 18 more U.S. schools as the disease became more widespread in the U.S.,[65][66][67][68][69] the same day the Mexican government ordered a shutdown of all non-essential activities in the government and private sector, amounting to a shutdown of most of the country's economy.[70]
Pharmaediting11 ( talk) 15:57, 30 April 2009 (UTC)In late April both the United Nations WHO and the U.S. CDC expressed serious concern about the situation, as it had the potential to become a flu pandemic due to the novelty of the influenza strain, its transmission from human to human, and the unusually high mortality rate in Mexico.[59] On April 25, 2009, the WHO formally determined the situation to be a "public health emergency of international concern", with knowledge lacking in regard to "the clinical features, epidemiology, and virology of reported cases and the appropriate responses".[60] By April 28, the World Health Organization (WHO) changed its pandemic alert phase to "Phase 5",[54][55][56] which denotes "widespread human infection". Governments around the world have expressed concern over this virus and are monitoring the situation closely.
The previous work to fix the lead's length seems to have gone well, but now the lead seems to have regrown its fifth paragraph. Emw2012 ( talk) 21:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I re-worked it and cut the information that is covered in depth later in the article so it is back down to four. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hdstubbs ( talk • contribs) 09:17, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Between this and other efforts like Google's Flu Trends system -- http://www.google.org/flutrends/ -- the Internet is really emerging as a great medium for real-time information exchange. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.98.245.197 ( talk) 16:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I like the article much better. It is much more accurate and tells the facts in a very neutral way (particularly the description of the initial outbreaks. Great work! I like it a lot! Thanks.-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 22:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Fully agree your doing a great job I was tracking SARS for a large enterprise and it was dozens of people, spread sheets and prediction models to monitor the spread of the outbreak. This time we just go to Wikipedia and other social network tools. Fantastic Work —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.228.81.122 ( talk) 14:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In references, can someone please fix? BFritzen ( talk) 16:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
In reference 11 seems to be the letter d of "Englan" missing.-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 16:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Has anyone seen info on how long victims have lived between the time they first showed symptoms and death? Please add this info if you can find it. ike9898 ( talk) 19:33, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Incubation period refers to the time between when you first contract the disease and when you start to exhibit symptoms. Depending on what disease it is you may or may not be contagious during this time. As for flu, I can't exactly remember all the specifics about it. (I knew I should have paid closer attention in virology class this semester) :) Pharmaediting11 ( talk) 00:11, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Revert vandalism by Hsibley -- under "spread within Mexico", text was changed to read "over 9000" from the previous "over 3000" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.110.178.157 ( talk) 23:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
http://www.who.int/about/regions/en/index.html
The WHO region map is salient, and not only because of the two-region criterion of Phase Six. It would be useful and informative to color-code their map as the epidemic develops in conjunction with the Mollweide projection —some of those nation-states are kind of cramped. And it's a global epidemic —why not use the WHO's global regions? We are using their data, after all! kencf0618 ( talk) 23:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Since yesterday [17], it seems we have two symptoms images to choose between now, which gives us the advantage to use the one we think fits best. In terms of symptoms, they both say exactly the same. 1 is public domain, while 2, on the other hand, has some rights reserved. 1 looks more realistic, while 2 is more diagram-like. The only other difference is I can see directly is that 2 is taller in order to make the text come out in same size. Are there any other pros and cons, and which one should we have? Mikael Häggström ( talk) 04:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I like the second one; perhaps someone could color-edit it so that the affected organs match the highlight color of the symptoms pointing to them, for easier reference? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.194.197.134 ( talk) 05:08, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I prefer the first one. kencf0618 ( talk) 06:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I like the second one. The first one is creepy, to me. I don't like the way his creepy eyes stare out at me when I can see his brain. Hdstubbs ( talk) 07:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't like either. Do we really need these to begin with? The symptoms of swine flue are identical to the symptoms of a bad strain of seasonal flu; in fact, most of the symptoms, e.g. diarrhea, nausea, lethargy, are common to hundreds of unrelated diseases. Does this chart really offer any useful information? What purpose does it serve? Before editors start spending hours creating worthless charts for all sorts of diseases, we really should have this debate. But if we're going to use a chart, I would prefer using an illustration of a person rather than have someone pose as a model, and in any case, the head should be turned sideways to properly illustrate the nasopharynx and areas of the brain (cerebellum).-- 98.232.98.144 ( talk) 07:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Nobody seems to have noticed that psychological is spelled wrong in the second image (both versions). — Xy 7 10:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The version that is currently in the article (niether #1 nor #2) looks amateurish (no offense). Replacing it with either #1 or #2 would be an improvement. ike9898 ( talk) 13:34, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I fixed the spelling error and used a PD image for the brain so now the whole file is in the public domain. (4) WilliamTheaker ( talk) 03:54, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I feel our coverage of the disease name (section 8) should include the reactions or overreactions to the virus that have happened as a result of people erroneously believing (based on only the disease's name) that it is carried by pigs or pig products.
Specifically, two articles that cover this: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/04/30/1915246.aspx http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/30/pork.industry.impact/index.html
The erroneous impacts / reactions include mass killings of livestock and improper bannings of imports from certain countries. It is quite notable and directly tied to the improper naming of the virus as a "swine flu."
Why are we relying on other news sources instead of the WHO daily updates to provide updated statistics?
Right here it says... http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_01/en/index.html
There are only 156 confirmed cases in Mexico not 312. There are 109 in the USA not 138.
For whatever reason the other countries are correct but why do we keep on inflating the numbers for the US and Mexico?
I don't care if a news source quotes a us or mexican official, the way the news is being carried at the moment makes a lot of the information by the media unreliable. Just consider this headline by the Times Online which is being used as a source for suspected cases. The headline blares "Mexico confirms swine flu toll rises to 159" while the first line in the story says "The number of suspected swine flu deaths in Mexico rose again last night to 159," if this is not enough evidence as to why we should stick exclusively with what WHO and CDC are saying then this article is as pointless as half the news article circulating out there.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6189805.ece —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.143.230.247 ( talk) 07:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
It's annoying, the values go up and down depending on who edited according to what source
Just use WHO and stick to it to avoid this confusing and quite amateuristic yo-yo effect
Dr-gonzo (
talk) 08:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Two points: One you should make this argument on the talk page for the template (the link is at the top of this page) and Two, instead of just using WHO, which is a good source, but shouldn't be the only source, why not make a rule that we only use government agencies for info on lab confirmed cases? 62.69.130.82 ( talk) 09:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
This is not about renaming/moving this article, it's about the name of this specific strain of Influenza A virus of subtype H1N1.
It makes no sense that this strain can be called influenza A (H1N1) or H1N1 influenza. That's like calling one specific species of falcon "Bird", or "Aves Falconiformes".
2009 H1N1 flu only makes sense if there is only one strain a year of H1N1.
North-American flu for this strain is less specific than the strain's own constituants: North American swine influenza and North American avian influenza.
I understand that Wikipedia just summarizes what primary and secondary sources say, but are there no sources that have given this strain a sensible name? -- Jeandré, 2009-05-01 t13:38z
Renaming Swine Flu to anything else at this point would be nonsense. There was no Bird Producer Lobby pushing to have Bird Flu renamed, but if there was, could anyone imagine the disservice renaming it would cause. Here in Canada our National News Media, The CBC, said they will not allow the Pork Lobby to dictate a name change to what is commonly known as Swine Flu. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.212.41.12 ( talk) 17:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The name is important because "swine flu" implies an assumed zoonosis, meaning swine influenza crossing the species barrier into humans. So far, this strain has not been found in swine. Thus, this new strain appears to be a new strain of human influenza and "swine flu" is a misnomer. -- Una Smith ( talk) 19:07, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Is Influenza A (A/California/09/2009(H1N1)) the actual scientific name or does it have the word Mexico city in place of California? I've seen both. Does anyone have a link? I think that would be useful to put into the article. Hdstubbs ( talk) 09:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
In the 2003 pandemic, did the WHO bring their alert level to Phase 6 or did it stay below that the whole time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.47.141.21 ( talk) 15:49, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
They've never raised it above 3. Barnaby dawson ( talk) 15:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
HMWITH you are totally right and I am breaking the rules but in answer to the question: this current pandemic six stage alert system was completely revamped post SARS because of what they felt was some problems with the system. So there was a system in place but it wasn't these same levels (I don't know if it was still six stages). I can't remember where I read this or I would send you the link. Hdstubbs ( talk) 18:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I am concerned that this article is misleading. Media reports of suspected cases, confirmed cases and deaths are given to several significant figures. This gives the impression that the number of individuals infected falls between the suspected number and the confirmed number and that there is a high degree of accurary in these figures themselves. However, this seems likely to be false as suspected cases almost only consist of people who have contacted a doctor, have been detected at a national border or have had contact with these two groups. In addition not all countries may be accurately reporting their figures. The real number of infected is almost certainly higher. Which means that the flu has spread faster than our article suggests and is less deadly than it implies (assuming that deaths are more likely to be detected than mild cases). I don't have the time to search for references to confirm or settle this but I think it should be done. If I'm right our graphs, the table and the introduction should make it clear that the figures quoted do not correspond to actual infections (and possibly not even actual mortality rates). Barnaby dawson ( talk) 15:55, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In fact I think the graphs, tables and the introduction should make this clear anyhow. If there is evidence I'm right we may need to edit the article more heavily. Barnaby dawson ( talk) 15:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Where are you getting these "laboratory confirmed" numbers? They keep jumping back and forth. Sometimes when I click refresh on the page a "laboratory confirmed" count decreases. Either it's confirmed or it isn't. Do they go back and retract confirmations, or why are we seeing these highly nonsensical fluctuations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.33.89.195 ( talk) 16:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In the "spread within Mexico" section, the first sentence isn't properly sourced:
The source for this claim is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8017585.stm but it doesn't say anything about March 18 or Mexico City. Analoguni ( talk) 16:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
According to BBC China has confirmed their first case of H1N1 2009 - Flu in Hong Kong in a man traveling via Shanghai. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8028169.stm http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/health/02flu.html?ref=asia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.173.57.165 ( talk) 16:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The Chinese have cordoned off the area around the hotel.
Article should be updated to note a confirmed case in China. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.173.57.165 ( talk) 16:33, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
In the Spread in Mexico section it reads:
"The strain appears to be unusually lethal in Mexico but not in other countries."
this is POV and should accurately read "The strain in Mexico has caused 12 confirmed deaths so far while no other deaths have been reported in any other countries."
Is it unusual to die from the flu virus be it this strain or any other? Do the 12 confirmed deaths from H1N1 among the yet undetermined total number of cases give any basis to consider that this "strain appears to be unusually lethal"?
The wording conveys the sense that there is some sort of "supervirus" going on in Mexico causing an "unsual" number of deaths. This is not accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.143.17.185 ( talk) 18:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
South Korea should be yellow not red, and Russia also should be yellow since they are suspected. Kadrun ( talk) 19:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Discussion moved to
Template talk page
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The information presented in the Table on the number of Possible or Probable Cases and Deaths of H1N1 flu victims suffers from the inclusion of dozens of unreliable and unverifiable information which makes is not appropriate for an encyclopedic article on this subject and has gotten out of hand. Re: Reliable Sources for Medicine-Related Articles Many of the referenced sources are popular news articles that are passing along rumor and unverified information. What got me started trying to raise the flag about inaccurate information stemmed from several articles from non-popular, local news outlets that were simply reporting hearsay and random emails about someone possibly being sick, and then later retracting the information. The popular press is playing fast and loose with any facts they present, which makes the listing of possible and probable cases as something that is fluid, un-scientific, and unencyclopedic. The information from those sources would never make it into any journal article or respected publication due to these problems. It is irresponsible for wikipedians to be spreading such information on a medically-related wikipedia article, at the top of the page, that distorts the information being distributed by government sources and medically-oriented sources and publications about the outbreak. The table sensationalizes the issue, and portrays inaccurate numbers that are meaningless. Whereas some popular news articles publish updated WHO, CDC, and other medically-related bodies, that is okay as they are reporting verifiable facts. Years of medical school have taught me that for medicine, you need to look at your level of evidence...and Wikipedia is no different, especially when it comes to presenting information about medicine-related topics. We should be listing information from reliable sources, and only including breaking-information from those sources where an popular-press author has provided that information ahead of the reliable source's publications. Including popular-press scare-mongering information that is designed to grab headlines is not appropriate for an encyclopedic article that is supposed to be presenting a NPOV. I would like people to discuss this issue regarding the removal of unreliable information from the table. I tried adding a tag to the table sub-article, but was quickly banned by some authors that wanted to mute any discussion about reliable sources in inaccuracies. We are all trying to ensure that Wikipedia provides a balanced, and accurate representation. Flipper9 ( talk) 19:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
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Thanks to update french data:
source: http://www.invs.sante.fr/derniere_minute/fichiers/10.bilan01052009_19h00.pdf
-- 86.220.46.203 ( talk) 19:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC) Yes I Anonymous
I rewrote the second paragraph to be a little more accurate:
Although the exact time and location of the outbreak is unknown, it is believed to have been first detected when an influenza-like illness was reported by both health agencies and local news media in Mexico. The virus responsible was clinically identified as a new strain on April 24, 2009. Within days, isolated cases (and suspected cases) were identified elsewhere in Mexico, the U.S., and several other countries.
But could someone help me with adding the references to the bottom of the page. There should be a citation for this source after both the first and second sentences: http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/biosurveillance/2009/04/swine-flu-in-mexico-timeline-of-events.html
Thanks. And could someone give me a link to how to change references myself? I can't find one. Hdstubbs ( talk) 20:32, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
{{editsemiprotected}}
Please get the death tolls from the WHO site, they are official figures,
http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_01a/en/index.html - Latest Update http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html - Swine Flu main Page
The NYT article referred at reference 148 Fighting Deadly Flu mentions that "Most of Mexico’s dead were young, healthy adults, and none were over 60 or under 3 years old, the World Health Organization said" which is incorrect according to Influenza-like illness in the United States and Mexico The WHO release mentions that 18 of the 24 cases showing ILI were young, healthy adults. The same article mentioned that only 3 died, and gave no indication if those 3 were among the 18 or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.131.1.130 ( talk • contribs) 17:46, 1 May 2009
i don't really have time to scour this discussion for a thread similar to the one i'm proposing, however it seems prudent the occurrence of the term 'pandemic' in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH ought have a definition option attached.
so no one needs go scrambling for it, here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic
i would add it as such, but the article seems locked (understandable...).
you're welcome ;-) 69.11.55.241 ( talk) 23:45, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Adressed. Vrinan ( talk) 23:59, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I was reading this on the CDC website and it breaks down (albeit in the USA) deaths and rates of infection for 3 different strains of influenza, but not AH1N1. Influenza by Week. It is not unlike what we are seeing with this one, but I will let you all read and (hopefully) get an idea that this is an epidemic (at most) and the "pandemoniademic" isn't really a threat. BFritzen ( talk) 02:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
You make a good point, that currently this epidemic is not what epidemiologists have long feared in terms of an influenza outbreak. However, even though the media has engaged in fear-mongering and hype, there is a real public health issue here for both developed and developing nations. [18]If you're looking for interesting article read this. -- Hdstubbs ( talk) 04:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I deleted the government actions section because it was already mentioned in the country specific discussion section. Just wanted to put it on the talk page in case anyone wanted to discuss. Hdstubbs ( talk) 03:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
This chapter has nothing lost on this page. I think it shoule be deleted or maybe linked somewhere.
- This is a international crisis and an international article. I dont see how the influenza season of one country is related to the topic in any way.
- the text is missleading because it doesnt mention that it talks about the US when stating "prior influenza season.
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
85.2.64.57 (
talk) 09:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
s It is not Smithfield Farms the one who has to say they are not the cause of the problem, OMS should confirm that. Because in 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia , but when NAFTA came into effect 1994, Smithfield Farms moved its harmful practices to Veracruz, Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators. Reporter Jeff Teitz reported in 2006 on the conditions in Smithfield’s US facilities: " Pigs are artificially inseminated and injected with antibiotics to bear the sicknesses they have. They are fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals became lethal and pigs start dying."
Consider what happens when such forms of massive pork production move to unregulated territory where Mexican authorities allow wealthy interests to do business without adequate oversight. What happen when a lagoon is near, filled with all that shit and flies transport their sicknesses to the people.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2009/04/28/index.php?section=opinion&article=020a1pol&partner=rss http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2006/04/24/index.php?section=opinion&article=026a2pol
So far, the only connection between the outbreak and this pig farm is a single case in the vicinity. Samples from other cases in the vicinity reportedly have been tested and were negative, and the corporation claims they test for swine flu in their pigs and found none. There was an outbreak of influenza-like illness in the vicinity early this year, but the connection to this outbreak is very weak. So, don't count on this theory holding up. -- Una Smith ( talk) 01:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Aw geeze, now ya tell me. I just bought a Smithfield ham yesterday... Terry Yager ( talk) 16:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
As we collected a lot of figures from hundred of different sources here, I made a chart of the reported possible and confirmed cases. The x-axis is in hours, started from 26th April 2009. The figures are taken from the article's and template's history every hour. Well 2 notes: Development for the confirmed cases seemed to be exponential (5 days/5 doublings: 30 - 60 - 120 - 240 - 500). The reported possible cases are rather linear. -- Grochim ( talk) 12:14, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Interresting, maybe add to the article, although I don't know if this qualifies as "original research". 128.232.228.74 ( talk) 13:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
(ec)While I appreciate the effort that Grochim took to make these charts, their use in the article is inappropriate because:
In short, despite the good intentions, these graphs are against wiki-policy of OR, and also meaningless, inaccurate and potentially alarming. So I'm going to remove them from the article; if you disagree feel free to discuss the issue here on talk page and establish consensus for inclusion. Abecedare ( talk) 16:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm in favor of seeing this in the article per wikipedia policy of using common sense. Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 19:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I suggest adding an estimate of the current death rate (i.e., percentage of death among the confirmed cases in the last one or two days), and graph its history since the beginning of the epidemic.. I believe this is a meaningful quantity, since it would (I expect) reflect the fact that awareness and treatment availability improve chances of survival, and it would help lower the level of panic among the population. I think lowering this level is an important goal of good informers, Wikipedians. 140.180.171.121 ( talk) 00:07, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I suggest we have a diagram showing daily *new* suspected/confirmed cases. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.26.209.10 ( talk) 16:24, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The latest Mexican numbers do not fit any statistical epidemiology/pandemic model. Looks like a hide and seek game influenced by political / economical factors. The truth will, as usual, reveal itself as time goes by. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.197.233.106 ( talk) 21:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
If there are confirmed cases of infection prior to when patient zero became infected (see main article), how is it that he is still being considered patient zero? Have there been any other patient zero candidates? Victor Engel ( talk) 21:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Any claims of a patient zero of are entirely media speculation. They do not know who patient zero is. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/04/29/2009-04-29_is_5yearold_edgar_hernandez_patient_zero_mexican_governor_says_so_officials_not_.html Hdstubbs ( talk) 02:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
As previous discussions show, that 5-year-old boy CANNOT be patient zero (by logic) even if media calls him though. Therefore, it can be put in the Widipedia article, but only with the hint that it is just called by the media so, but that there were other "cases" before (see Spanish version, for example): http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brote_de_gripe_porcina_de_2009#Origen-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 14:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Johann Hari has written a column in The Independent that claims the current flu came from factory-farmed pigs. [21] Does anyone know if this is possible or has been confirmed? The Four Deuces ( talk) 22:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
... the evidence is suggestive, although far from conclusive. We know that the city where this swine flu first emerged – Perote, Mexico – contains a massive industrial pig farm, and houses 950,000 pigs. Dr Silbergeld adds: "Factory farms are not biosecure at all. People are going in and out all the time. If you stand a few miles down-wind from a factory farm, you can pick up the pathogens easily. And manure from these farms isn't always disposed of."
This information is according to the Health Minister of the Mexican State of Sonora. Sonora borders the US state of Arizona.
Per the Health Minister of the state regarding the mortality rate of the H1N1 virus:
http://www.ehui.com/?c=20&a=117048
"Según los estudios que se han realizado de la influenza se determinó que la enfermedad es curable y que su índice de mortandad es de 3.6 por ciento, lo cual es similar a las neumonías que se presentan cada año, destacó Raymundo López Vucovich.
El Secretario de Salud aseguró que Sonora continúa libre del virus, pues no hay casos ni sospechosos, ni probables"
According to the studies made, the disease is treatable and the mortality rate is of 3.6% which is considered similar to that of the normal flu virus. He added that the state of Sonora is currently without any probable, confirmed or deadly cases to report.
GaussianCopula ( talk) 06:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
New Scientist quotes a study that shows infection rate Ro of AH1n! as being 1,16, meaning 100 people will infect 116 others, barely sustainable. Infection rate of Ro 2 is exponential, Spanish flu was 3,14, namely uncontrolable. If Ah1n1 Ro falls from 1,16 to under 0,99 it will die out. Washing hands would do that.
quote Weak virus
If the new virus spreads from one infected person to the next at about the same speed as ordinary flu, that gives an idea of how many cases there may have been in that time. A mathematical model permits the calculation of an important variable called R0 – the number of additional people infected, on average, by each case. If R0 is less than one, an infection dies out.
Grassly also cautions that the estimate is very preliminary. But with the data available now, he gets an R0 of 1.16 – enough for the virus to keep going, but only just. unquote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.69.69.7 ( talk) 12:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
More more persons will gain in lottery, than will die of this influenza.This panic is useless.This isn't the flu of 1918 and 1919 and our medicine and technology is faraheadm, than 1919. Agre22 ( talk) 14:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)agre22
Claiming that the H1N1 virus is not or very dangerous is at this point just POV as there is no way to predict the future development of this virus. We don't know how this virus will behave in an area like Africa. Or whether or not it will mutate into something more or less dangerous. Nor is there no cure for flu at the moment. Thus it is better to keep statements about the severity of the virus outside the article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050101777.html?hpid=topnews —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.31.72.151 ( talk) 18:05, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Cuba is now 'showing off' to. [ [22]] -- 86.29.246.140 ( talk) 10:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Infowars is nothing more than a conspiracy site. Its better to follow the WHO which has stated that it is far to early to make definitive conclusions about the severity of the virus. Than the ramblings of an man that has probable never read a book about microorganisms in his life. And is just trying to make an few bucks out of another tragedy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.31.72.151 ( talk) 12:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The article currently implies the virus is damaged by heating (ie, only by heating). In fact, it is damaged also by disinfectants and by freezing. To preserve fresh flu samples for testing, they are chilled, not frozen. Flu virus can be kept frozen for many years by (a) adding chemicals that prevent damage to the virus and (b) storing in the absence of ice and (b) avoiding freeze-thaw cycles. One way pig farmers control influenza is to ensure pigs with flu are kept in warm indoors and outdoors in warm weather or below freezing weather but not in cold weather. Assay kits for detecting H1N1 in swine are damaged by freezing because the kits use the two proteins (the H and N) used by the virus to enter host cells, and these proteins are inactivated by freezing. Some sources are below. -- Una Smith ( talk) 19:39, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
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ignored (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)does the swine flu cause cytokine storms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.128.75.137 ( talk) 23:29, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
According to the Berlin immunologist Stefan Kaufmann as quoted in the Financial Times Deutschland, the death rate so far for the H1N1 virus is around 1% which is significantly lower than that of the avian flu which he considers it to be around 30%-50%. (The avian flu wikipedia article has the WHO official rate at around 60%).
"Auch diesmal melden Apotheken ebenfalls eine steigende Nachfrage nach Medikamenten. Die Regierung warnte aber davor, Tamiflu und ähnliche Medikamente präventiv einzunehmen. Die Schweinegrippe des Virentyps H1N1 sei viel ungefährlicher als die Vogelgrippe, erklärt der Berliner Immunologe Stefan Kaufmann. Die Schweinegrippe sei zwar im Gegensatz zur Vogelgrippe von Mensch zu Mensch übertragbar, die Todesrate liege aber nur bei rund einem Prozent. "Bei der Vogelgrippe sind es 30 bis 50 Prozent." "
GaussianCopula ( talk) 23:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Adding another article which quotes the Mexican Health Minister and pegs the mortality rate at possibly around 1.2%
Also adds information that around 25% of patients whom enter hospitals complaining of respiratory sickness, meet the criteria of similarity to possible H1N1 flu.
"Señaló que el índice de mortalidad pudiera ser de un 1.2% y explicó que de todos los pacientes que acuden a un hospital por una enfermedad respiratoria, sólo el 25% llena los criterios de presentar síntomas similares a los provocados por la influenza humana.
http://www.cnnexpansion.com/actualidad/2009/05/01/ssa-reporta-16-muertos-por-el-virus-h1n1
GaussianCopula ( talk) 23:44, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
its closer to 800 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.173.148.66 ( talk) 02:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Nausea, vomiting and diarrhea are not symptoms of this virus. One reporter reported that some spring breakers had that. Some spring breakers also drank alcohol and got traveler's influenza in addition to the virus. Please remove the extremely incorrect image. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.151.241.7 ( talk) 03:17, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The reference for this comment ( [23] in the 'Pandemic Concern' section) does state this, but it is wrong. The WHO statement that the reference article refers to states that most cases have been young, healthy adults, not most deaths.
Can someone please edit this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NoExaggeration ( talk • contribs) 13:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Generally speaking, as far as I'm aware, one cannot be a "young, healthy adult" if one has a fatal disease. Very sloppy writing... ╟─ Treasury Tag► contribs─╢ 07:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The BBC is reporting that the Mexican Secretariat of Health has revised suspected Swine Flu deaths down to 101. This should probably be updated in the article and table - Dumelow ( talk) 09:47, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, they have revised the probable death count to 101, but confirmed deaths in Mexico still sits at 16. This is according to both the latest WHO update and the BBC website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PixelPerfect ( talk • contribs) 09:59, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Doh! I must have been looking at the wrong column, I thought I read suspected deaths in Mexico were 162. The article was correct - Dumelow ( talk) 20:22, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I just read that 1303 cases were tested, from which 473 were confirmed to have the "human flu" (new name for the "swine flu"), and 19 of them died: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/595391.html Please update.-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 02:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There is much speculation that the virus in Mexico is a variant of the cases in the US and hence the lower mortality rate. However I have heard alternate speculation that it may because those in Mexico were not given vaccinations against bacterial infection as were those in the US and that the increased mortality is caused by pneumonia (after the viral infection) due to their increased susceptibility. Has anyone come across any evidence or articles to provide support for this argument? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.58.189.55 ( talk) 02:55, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I have speculated this from almost the beginning as I heard first time of it because our pediatrician told us something like that: The influenza vaccine in Europe won't protect much from influenza in Latin America. The same about the vaccine from the US. BUT Mexicans get the vaccine from the US (IF ANY). As far as I know there are hardly ever flu cases in Mexico (I don't have statistics that show it, would be interesting to see them, though), and even less often get vaccinated. But this is just my experience. No sources that prove it.-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 14:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I am wondering if we should remove the line which says:
"Although there have been reports of 152 "probable deaths"[83] in Mexico City and "more than 100 dead from swine flu",[84] the WHO had received reports of only 16 confirmed deaths total and explicitly denied the larger figure as of April 29.[85][86]"
The reason for this is that the two sources are BBC and The Herald Sun with information dated April 28 and 27, respectively.
If one looks at the same news sources as of May 2 and May 3, repectively, they have both updated information which is inconsistent with their early reports and consistent with the latest information which is being used. This is probably due to the initial reports being somewhat unrealible.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8030859.stm Dated May 2.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25421503-5005961,00.html Dated May 3.
GaussianCopula ( talk) 19:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Another proposed change is in the information regarding "The Mexican fatalities are alleged to be mainly young adults of 25 to 45". This should be changed to "mainly young female adults..."
This is consistent with the latest information whereby 14 of the 19 deaths are female and as stated by the Health Minister of Mexico.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jz6xx0ueubp7Yem-KVvQ957rIK2g
http://www.exonline.com.mx/diario/noticia/primera/pulsonacional/disipan_amenaza_del_virus/587894
GaussianCopula ( talk) 20:11, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Also to be included in the section is a reference regarding 17 of the 19 deaths having occurred in the Mexican Capital D.F. and its encompassing state Estado de Mexico.
http://www.prevencioninfluenza.gob.mx/
GaussianCopula ( talk) 22:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
Latest information regarding any updates within the Spread within Mexico have ignored the information provided here and yet have updated the information with the following nugget of relevance:
"As part of an outrageous marketing strategy, a mascot for the outbreak was released in Mexico City on April 29, depicting a blue plush virus with black eyes in reference of H1N1; it was however discontinued on May 1. [77]"
I believe that information to be irrelevant to the issue at hand. I ask editors to remove it and address my comments in this section.
Thank you.
GaussianCopula ( talk) 02:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I just heard in the Mexican news that there are 22 (15 female and 7 male) confirmed deaths.Surely the figures will be updated on this web page as soon as possible: http://www.prevencioninfluenza.gob.mx/-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 01:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
There should be at least a paragraph talking about all the reactions and some cases of discrimination against Mexicans, such as this ones:
-- Aguilac ( talk) 20:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
I think this is quite interesting, too, and should be added to the article because it shows one of many other reactions to the flu, such as media reports, donation, rising the level by WHO etc.-- 201.153.17.190 ( talk) 14:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Can someone change the map, because New Mexico has a confirmed case http://www.krqe.com/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.35.181.215 ( talk) 03:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
This is wierd! the death toll was use to be over 150: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LalqIYoarXE and they lowered it? Explain in the article why they lower it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeeV18 ( talk • contribs) 06:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Cuba has now ended all flights to Mexico to [25]!!!
And has Egypt just killed off 400,000 pigs [26]!-- 86.29.250.122 ( talk) 11:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Per the link above:
There are other dimensions to this story worth considering, but the most obvious one is the hunger factor that could be a direct byproduct of their actions. With pigs commonly weighing up to 500 pounds, the country could lose more lives to economic and hunger-related hardship than they do to the flu, and they already receive U.S. direct aid each year, some of which may now be needed for added reasons. -- Wikiwatcher1 ( talk) 17:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
See- User talk:86.29.246.35.-- 86.29.248.143 ( talk) 13:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
"God's vengeance on the infidels"...or whatever people mean when they say things like that...
...if someone wants to throw it into a section. Might just be weak research by The Washington Post. Gwopy ( talk) 12:52, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
It's a good angel on the case and is well worth mentioning!-- 86.29.248.143 ( talk) 13:02, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
The section "Government actions against pigs and pork" should be changed to include the infection of a pig farm, at its subsequent quarantine. 76.66.202.139 ( talk) 14:54, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
While I agree that under normal, non-emergency times, certain facts should be put in the body instead of in the lead's introduction, I think an exception should be considered. The sentences below were removed from the lead since the subject is covered within the body. I'd vote to put them back -either as is, abbreviated, paraphrased, or even expanded - due the the timely importance of this kind of information. Not everyone can cut through the details of this article and we know that most visitors will not go much beyond a lead. And since pigs can't fly or escape potential slaughter by uninformed and panicky populations, I think we should reconsider.
Any other thoughts? -- Wikiwatcher1 ( talk) 19:25, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
How about: "Although some influenza strains are easily spread between humans and other species, the influenza virus is killed by normal cooking procedures, so there is no risk of infection from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products."-- Pontificalibus ( talk) 20:04, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and put a sentence at the end of the intro, feel free to change it around. -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 20:32, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I have twice reverted edits removing reference to the Hong Kong flu pandemic in the intro. I think it is very useful to show people what the last pandemic was like in the intro, so they can quickly get an idea of what this is all about. However I don't want to revert this removal again and wonder what other people think -- Pontificalibus ( talk) 19:26, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I would like to report an Error, I don't have a wikipedia account so i am unable to correct it myself. in the table showing the ammount of H1N1 infections by country, the entry for New Zealand in not currently correct. the table says that there are 360 suspected cases, but according to the latest offical release from the New Zealand ministry of heath there are 89 suspected cases. There are 360 people in isolation but this figure includes anybody who may have been in contact with the diease, the people in isolation are not all showing symtoms, it is only a precaution. Suspected cases being people who have unconfirmed H1N1 symtoms, and probable cases being confirmed as type A influenza though the strain is not confirmed. could someone with an account please correct this?, its bugging me.
http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/influenza-a-h1n1-update-twenty-030509?Open <- Lastest Ministry of health report - offical count is shown on that page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.109.56 ( talk) 22:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
One swine flu case was confirmed in China. Here is the source on CNN - http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/03/swine.flu/index.html#cnnSTCOther2 -- Novis-M ( talk) 01:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
This included under Hong Kong. -- 62.69.130.82 ( talk) 10:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Though there are no confirmed cases found in India still, but in a country like India where the seasonal changes are very rapid and hygiene conditions are not at its best, it is vulnerable to spread this once hit. Further to that the Monsoon in India can also spread it if it reaches here by that time, as in Monsoon without any such influenza virus also most of the Indins suffer through cold and such small problems.
Enough care and awareness should be spread across different parts of society to ensure that this danger does not hit India. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.36.216.71 ( talk) 04:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Please see Template talk:2009-2010 flu pandemic table/Archive 3#Synthesis, where a discussion is underway about the sourcing and figures used in this and similar articles and tables. Your input is welcomed. —/ Mendaliv/ 2¢/ Δ's/ 09:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
suggest keep name with "swine flu" for now and escalate this naming discussion to get people who have been discussing naming issues for some time to come up with a more clarified consensus, perhaps using this specific naming discussion as an example to develop consensus on. This is because it seems like naming issues like "swine flu" vs "H1N1" are symptomatic of a much bigger and heavily discussed issue as follows [ note especially the "Oh boy, here we go again" :) ]
* WP:NAME says to favor easily recognized names for general audiences over vocabulary of specialists. * WP:MEDMOS#Naming conventions says exactly the opposite - to favor specilist vocabulary over commonly used names.
Which takes precendence? Why? The conflict should be resolved, or at least documented with usual procedure for dealing with it (precedence rules, etc.) Thanks. Zodon (talk) 08:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
Oh boy, here we go again. For extended discussion on this matter, see Archive 11, starting from this section and continuing on down and into Archive 12. Also see pretty much all of WT:FLORA. My personal view on this is that WP:NC (this policy) takes precedence, since it represents community-wide consensus, and that other specialized naming conventions should be changed to recognize this. Often, with specialized projects, there IS no easily recognized name; millions of kinds of flora/fauna/fungus/disease/insert specialized topic here are not commonly known, and thus the "most commonly used name" is the one used by experts in the field. So the majority of the time, the MEDMOS naming conventions are probably correct. However, all naming conventions should contain an exception that if a particular subject is known to the general public by a name different than what experts call it, and this name is widely known, then the layman's term should be favored over the expert's. So, I would disagree with the example given at the top of the MEDMOS naming conventions: Myocardial infarction should redirect to Heart attack, not the other way around. WP:Naming conventions is policy, while all of the WP:MOS pages are just guidelines.--Aervanath (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.17.145.129 ( talk)
WHO director Margaret Chan refers to it as such: [29]
For the first time in history, we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real-time.
WHO will be tracking the pandemic at the epidemiological, clinical, and virological levels.
The biggest question, right now, is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start?
JCDenton2052 ( talk) 21:03, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
If the WHO is now labeling this a pandemic, then we have to as well. Subjective severity or where it ends up doesn't matter, and is WP:OR. Note that I protected ALL of these articles earlier against non-admin moves as possible vandal targets. Once we have confirmation and broad consensus, any admin can move these--I just did all the ones linked off off the outbreak template which needs renaming then as well. We have a LOT of valid redirects here as well--all of them will need to be redone. Since (as ever with these articles) this is time sensitive and literally is a black and white binary decision, let's just poll and do this efficiently. rootology ( C)( T) 21:09, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
The statement by the World Organization for Animal Health that this strain has not been isolated from swine anywhere [30] persuades me that it is not swine influenza. Rather, it is human influenza that has acquired elements of avian and swine influenza. Also, given that at the time of discovery the strain was already in circulation in both Mexico and the US, I am in favor of calling it 2009 North American flu outbreak. -- Una Smith ( talk) 02:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, let's change the name. WHO has changed it, and clearly after Egypt it's obvious "Swine Flu" is just causing a lot of misunderstandings out there. I think it's time we follow suit. -- 24.87.88.162 ( talk) 19:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
However people are calling it swine flu and that is the headline that people will look under. Johnpacklambert ( talk) 03:57, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I should have said article people are looking for. I was preoccupied with other things and did not edit sufficiently. However, I have come up with an argument for keeping the "swine" in the name. The article is at Battle of Bunker Hill even though it was fought at Breed's Hill. The issue is not accuracy, but common usage. Johnpacklambert ( talk) 04:00, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Currently people is calling it swine influneza, but in textbooks it will be called novel human influenza. Therefore we should follow WHO naming right now, in order to prevent future problems. Konegistiger ( talk) 05:27, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
A NCBI blast search of the genomes sequenced so far by the CDC and WHO labs, the large majority of similar sequences are swine influenza A genomes. WHO wants this influenza renamed not for scientific reasons but for political ones. The sequences for the 8 genes 6 show most simalarity to swine flu one to a virus found in ducks and one in a human from Wisconsin in 2003. The two non swine sequences are anotated as being similar to swine sequences. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.211.124.126 ( talk) 09:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia have a big naming trouble, wikipedia have 2 articles/names/topics ( Swine flu AND 2009 swine flu outbreak), CNN, BBC, etc just have one : Swine flu.
People aren't getting the information they are searching for. A solution is NEED. Yug (talk) 11:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I initially went to the other page, but when I saw that the current strain was in this article, I came here. However, I did want a little info on swine flu in general and it worked. The templates work, and we have to remember that although some people think it is the end of the world, it is not, and in five years a general overview of swine flu will be more searched for than the 2009 variety. Johnpacklambert ( talk) 04:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
[31] WHO stopped using this term to protect pigs from being slaughtered, like done in Egypt already. Maybe Wikipedia should too? Just a thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.191.179.57 ( talk) 17:55, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Searching google news for flu, brings up "swine flu", so that appears to still be the common name. http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&q=flu Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 18:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Agree In addition to the reasons cited above, President Obama carefully called it "the H1N1 virus."
I suggest using the name "Chimeric Flu" as it is a mixture of avian, human and swine strains. Calling it H1N1 like WHO does is confusing, as there already is a Type A H1N1 going around this year (the one that is Tamiflu resistant). CDC seems to be moving toward H1N1 (2009) which is a bit better as the H1N1 from last season was discovered in a previous year. In a non-politically correct world, it would clearly be called Mexican Flu, since that is where it seems to have originated. Would it be more PC to call it Aztec Flu?
The geographic region is the naming convention established for prior flu pandemics. Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu, Fujian flu, and so on. It would be consistent to name this one the 2009 Mexican flu. Otherwise in the historical literature the sequence of names for pandemics throughout history will be inconsistent and confusing if they switch back and forth between geographic labels and medical terminology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.228.195.206 ( talk) 02:29, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Egypt has two main conditions which led to the decision to slaughter the pigs 1-pigs are not bred in farms but they just live between piles of garbage, so if one gets infected it would be difficult to know or too late not as in as in case of Alberta Canada where Canadian officials say pigs in the province of Alberta have been infected with the new swine flu virus and are under quarantine. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hZVkRqV2uZVim0TRk5R1ZBfovTCAD97UDDC2
2-egypt is already struggling with avian flue which is there for about 3 years now and the pigs play the middle ground between avian and human flu allowing the virus to change from avian to another virus which can pass to human easily or even to change to a human to human transferable virus Sonatasameh ( talk) 02:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
30 April 2009 -- From today, WHO will refer to the new influenza virus as influenza A(H1N1). [32]-- zayani ( talk) 19:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Jesus Christ, we are just having a vote about "Abandoning the name Swine Flu" about 3 inches up the page. Can we give it a break for a while? Does anyone ever actually read WP:COMMONAME? -- Pontificalibus ( talk)
"In cases where the common name of a subject is misleading, then it is sometimes reasonable to fall back on a well-accepted alternative" -- #Per WP:COMMONAME: -- 24.87.88.162 ( talk) 20:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Isn't it possible to "move" it to different names with reference to one main article (which should have the most used name)? E.g. "North American influenza" and "Mexican flu" refer to "2009 swine flu outbreak" (just an example!) so that people can find the information they are looking for either way. I mean, that's all about: Finding the info they are looking for. For finding the "right name" of the main article, I prefer to wait and observe a little more how media handles and calls the topic.-- 201.153.40.28 ( talk) 22:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Came across this article which might give us another reason to hold off for a while.
"Swine flu name change? Flu genes spell pig" (4/30/09)-- Wikiwatcher1 ( talk) 22:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
I propose freezing the name for a few days. Yes, the WHO did say to stop using the term swine flu. But people are still calling it that, and probably will continue calling it that forever. As swine flu is what most people will search for in the search bar, we need the article to be right where they think it will be. Until we can get sources of common people calling it something other than swine flu the name should be stay as it is.
Drew R. Smith ( talk) 23:52, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
support - this sounds like a good idea, can definitely wait a day or two to see what happens, the setting up of redirects also sound like a good idea - so no matter which of the main names a person uses in the search box they go to the article. The name is being pushed from swine flu and WHO etc might be successful in getting name changed over time. Its good that the main names for the new flu are in the introduction as the many names for the new flu seems to be becoming an aspect of the new flu. Anyway as long as when someone puts "swine flu" or other major common name for the new flu in the search box they come to this article that is what i would suggest is the most important thing, second is what the article is actually called - though of course the effort to get the actual article name to be accurate and precise is good stuff. Sure change the name for the article about new flu if necessary if wiki rules, references and editors follow. Such a hot topic in such a hotly debated article could use a little cooling off [though maybe not on the talk page :) ]. P.S. kudos to all the editors working so hard on this article, its great and readers like me appreciate it even if you may not hear thank yous directly from us very much —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.17.145.209 ( talk) 02:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Just a comment that keeping the page name consistent with what people will search for in the search bar is not an argument that forces us into keeping this page name, since that issue can be dealt with via a redirect. Sancho 00:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
I believe WHO officially named the disease to "Influenza A (H1N1)". Kadrun ( talk) 00:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Everyone on google news is still calling it swine flu so a name change is inappropriate. http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&q=flu . Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 11:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Can you imagine a commercial break during the nightly news this coming fall?
This ALMOST sounds like a zombie outbreak... 11:26, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Swine flu | 2009 swine flu outbreak | |
---|---|---|
Link is on the Main Page | no | yes |
Visits by day | 1.3 million wiki visitors/day, the most view, visitor all come here ! | 0.4 million / day, less than 1/3rd of the visitors come here |
Talk page's activity by day | little activity, nobody here, just some wiki-users / day | very active, everybody here, several dozens of wiki-users / day |
(Main) Topic | formerly: all strains of influenza in swine since decades. soon: the current 'swine flu' outbreak |
formerly: the current 'swine flu' outbreak soon: the current 'swine flu' outbreak |
trouble : if we do nothing, the 2 articles are becoming copies. Solution: choice better names to differentiate more clearly the 2 articles. |
Yug (talk) 01:44, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
Move to 2009 swine influenza outbreak? - down load | sign! 02:53, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
As of Thursday April 30th the WHO has officially ceased referring to this outbreak as "swine flu." This follows on the heels of Egypt's ill conceived decision to cull their swine. The A(H1N1) outbreak is not even transmitted by swine, but has a human to human transmission as well as containing avian and human influenza DNA. It may be a bit late in the game, but I think that Wikipedia should follow international convention in this matter and more appropriately rename the article "2009 influenza A (H1N1) outbreak"
The WHO site link is below and although it uses 'swineflu' in the address there is no longer any mention of it on their page and a statement declaring all future references to be to the A(H1N1) outbreak.
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html Ibrmrn ( talk) 13:19, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
The official name is now influenza A (H1N1). Who thinks the name of the article should be changed? Use agree or disagree marks!-- Ken Durham ( talk) 13:35, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
As of this signing I count 16 agree and 12 disagree. Daniel.Cardenas ( talk) 23:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Please discuss rather than vote. Voting is evil. hmwith τ 21:10, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
The Manual of Style with regard to medicine, if it's not already been pointed out. The naming conventions state:
The article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name rather than the lay term (common, unscientific, and/or slang name) or a historical eponym that has been superseded.
This is the textbook definition. "Swine flu" has been superseded as the scientific name, at least with regards to WHO. Whether it's H1N1 or H1N1(A) is debatable, but given the MOS, we shouldn't have it at "swine flu" anymore. Sceptre ( talk) 08:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Come on, Wikipedia, follow your own policies and LEAVE IT AS IS. The virus may be the same old one which has caused concern as in previous outbreaks, but this IS the 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak, and thats how it will be commonly know 20 years from now just as it is today. And with all due respect to the not-a-vote lobby, this is the same tired policy/weak excuse which is trotted out when people want something change in contrary to consensus or when consensus has yet to be reached. Take the time to *read* the votes and you will see there is substantive discussion attached to those yeas and nays. Personally I dont understand why this has to be so political. The virus is H1N1 or whatever. There is already an article about that - H1N1. But that is not what this article is about. This article is about the current outbreak which everyone recognizes as Swine Flu. That's just the way it is and no wikipedia policy is going to change that. The origin of the name and it basis in truth is irrelevant. If name is misleading then add a sentence to the into explaining the origin of the name - this is wikipedia and YOU can do it yourself. Just because the WHO decides to use different terminology in their own press releases and the american's new messiah also calls it so to appease the pork lobby does not change facts. The korean war was officially call a 'police action' by the self-proclaimed authorities, but that doesn't mean we bow to the political winds and use such names for wikipedia titles. Read the comments, acknowledge the lack of consensus, be professional, and leave the title alone until the dust settles. 208.103.249.128 ( talk) 15:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Apologies 208.103... I did not intend to be unprofessional. If anything, I think your response is an unnecessary escalation and actually more unprofessional than my original post unintentially was. I actually did read the comments in the voting before posting, as I read this entire talk page (and most of the archives). I also read the various Wikipedia policies that were cited, and MOS:MED seems most relevant. I apologize if I was slightly too strong in suggesting the change happen sooner rather than later, but it appears that most of the votes above that you cite where given before any mention of MOS:MED. I therefore assumed that they were unaware of that information and urged prompt reconsideration. I did not, as you did, assume that they simply ignored information and discussion. Is there anything that I said that said otherwise? And, by the way, if we went by your standard about how it will commonly be known 20 years from now, we should retitle the AIDS article as Gay-related immune deficiency, as it was originally known. I'm not trying to be funny; I'm just following the logic. Again, I apologize for any misunderstandings, but I am saddened that you felt the need to escalate, particularly if you feel so strongly that policies are in your favor already. You might have another perspective on this question if you were a pork farmer. But hey, I'm happy to have cheaper pork to buy for the next few months, so I guess there's another benefit for some of us at least. And not that anecdotal data matters anymore than voting in Wikipedia policy, but on my campus, all official references to the virus are H1N1, and "swine flu" seems to have become something of a jocular way to refer to it, since everyone knows it's technically wrong. 66.30.15.98 ( talk) 23:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
I've been hearing less and less people actually call it "swine flu". This may no longer be the " common name". Surprisingly, I've heard students around my university actually calling it H1N1 influenza A, while discussing it. This may slowly be becoming the most common name, among informed people, at least. I've only heard "swine flu" used recently when joking about it. This is all WP:OR, of course, as a judgment of a common name would have to be. Thoughts? hmwith τ 16:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Why sould « Henry Niman of Recombinomics»'s opinion - note the red links - should be weighted against that of the World Health Organization, World Organization for Animal Health, and several governments? Not that it should not, I don't know, but why should I, a reader, care about what Mr. Niman says? - Nabla ( talk) 20:46, 2 May 2009 (UTC)