Does anyone know why this Swine Flu is (so far) only fatal in Mexico?

[MadamAnt]

Just curious.

Strange isn't it?

Well Richard Madeley, who is always my sage in these things reckoned on the radio this am that it's because the virus is mutating and weakening as it leaves its original source.

So as each person gets it, it gets weaker so that people survive and don't die - and so can infect lots more people with the virus.

He's a tosser though, so maybe he's got the whole thing wrong.

Because that is where it started and where most people have got ill!

About 98% of the cases have been in Mexico so it is statistically v likely that the few deaths would be there.

I assumed it was lack of the correct medicines (not enough to go round).

what arti said.

I can't be bothered to look up the exact numbers but IIRC then there has been about 900 cases in Mexico, and about 100 deaths, about 1/10, of which some will probably be due to complications/poor health care.

There has only been about 20 cases elsewhere in the world so you would not expect more than 2 deaths going by the Mexico fatality rate. As these are ongoing and probably receiving better healthcare anyway, it's not surprising there have been no deaths so far elsewhere.

If the US had had 900 cases with no deaths then that would be strange.

I love the idea of Richard Madeley being the first point of reference for such matters!!

Has it been released what "sort" of people have died from it - i.e. more vulnerable cases like immuno depressed people, old people, very young etc? All I seem to get from the news is a lot of hyperbole and not much useful fact...

Soupy - really? That's dreadful! You'd think better off countries would have stepped in to ensure availability of drugs, even if only out of self interest.

Relative poverty in Mexico, realtivley poor health care, relatively poor diet all contributing factors to survival rates.

Early intervention also saves lives and now we know it is spreading obviously anyone who gets it is getting early treatment. The early cases in Mexico did not get early treatment because no one knew what it was.

only 26 of the 150 or so people who have died have been confirmed to have had swine flu.

There is a lot of speculation about why the people in meccico have died rather than anywhere else, and the two most highly considered possibilities are that A, the people in meccico already had other viruses which combined with the flu and thus killed them, and B, that because a lot of people in meccico don't have access to adequate healthcare, they were not able to access treatment in time.

Re the virus mutating, an expert on five live said this morning that the fear is that the virus will mutate and actually become stronger. So actually it would probably be better to catch it now so you could build imunity to the virus before it strengthened.

SLF, I think one of the concerns has been that it's been younger and fitter people catching it, which was also true of 1918 flu I think.

Some useful info here news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8021958.stm

Ah - I thought there were more worldwide cases than that, and fewer cases in Mexico. That does make more sense. Still, 1 in 10 is worrying (to a pregnant, sleep-deprived worrier like me ).

SLF - I think the deaths have mainly been among "healthy young adults" aged 20-50.

the virus can mutate to become either stronger or weaker but of course weaker strains tend to die out.

So it is possible that people elsewhere have a weaker version, but it's equally possible that another mutation could cause more concern.

But to complicate matters, more infective doesn't necessarily mean more fatal and vice versa. In fact a virus that makes you feel very sick, very quickly may be less infective because you are less likely to go out and cough over people!

I only assumed it was due to lack of medicine because the health authorities here seem to be making a big thing about the fact that they have enough supplies if people catch it.

Thanks for the link. I am now better informed! It is odd how it's affected young people (not to mention tragic)

You may also be interested in this item which reports views of scientists. It is Australian/NZ in perspective but just as relevant IMO to the UK. article

By the way the reason it tends to affect yound people worse is that these flu strains tend to circulate and mutate in roughly 11 year cycles so the older you are the more likel you are to have built up some immunity from exposure when you were younger. In fact the current strain is very similar in form to that which caused the 1918 epidemic and while that might sound scary it may also mean that most of us have quite a high degree of immunity as variations to that flu (decendants so to speak) have been circulating globally ever since.

It could be a number of factors. Mexico has serious pockets of abject poverty - no clean water, malnutrition, people working with dangerous chemicals or substances long banned elsewhere that can compromise a person's immunity or have an adverse affect on their health, being far away from or not able to afford medical care to putting things off until you're very ill, etc.

We don't even know if those who died had another condition, such as HIV+ or HepC, which could have made them more susceptible. Or were drug users or the like.

Of course, Mexico is also reporting something over 2,000 hospital admissions, which would probably mean that the actual infection rate is much higher - people who never went to hospital in the first place because they weren't that ill.

The people who are reporting ill in other countries are being tested at the first sign of any flu-like symptoms after arriving from Mexico - whereas certainly until last week in Mexico you probably wouldn't have bothered doing anything about it unless you were really ill.

That link that Buzzybee posted is really sensible and helpful, if you are given to panic.

The other reason that young adults can be worse affected in a new strain of flu is that their immune systems have a strong reaction to the virus and it is the side effects of this which cause more serious secondary illness.