Well, it seems that the international medias (including AFP and Reuters) are against WHO's 2009 April, 30 "plea" (and a second repeated "plea") not to use the term Swine Flu. The pix was taken from CDC's H1N1 site. Does anyone know what is happening? It's like a big conspiracy where FAO/WHO/OIE/WTO/CDC and the Name Callers are wedging war for the "right of name/s"!
Oh, about the title, read the excerpt:
This virus was originally referred to as “swine flu” because laboratory testing showed that many of the genes in this new virus were very similar to influenza viruses that normally occur in pigs in North America. But further study has shown that this new virus is very different from what normally circulates in North American pigs. It has two genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia and avian genes and human genes. Scientists call this a "quadruple reassortant" virus. [Source]
Perhaps the "tug of naming war" is related with [this] news piece?
Excerpts:
This outbreak (sometime in Jan 1976) affected 230 military personnel, killing one person, but it was successfully contained and was almost certainly caused by the direct transmission of swine flu from pigs. [Source]
My Related Post: Piggy Flu
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2 comments:
dont really understand that, Chua..swine or no swine, one needs to be hygienic nowadays.. wash our hands with soup, avoid public places, dont shake hands... what else ah...our health minister said? tomorrow will listen to the radio one more time... :)
Sorry Claire, only now able to reply, got busy and read my new post. Thanks anyway. You're right, like Eugene said, names are irrelevant. Cheers and have a nice day. ;)
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