Swine Flu

The last few days I have seen more articles, tweets, and statuses regarding the Swine Flu in the US. I realized I have been in such a news bubble lately and needed to find out exactly what was going on with pigs in the US. I found an article on news.com that was relatively useful in giving me the basics of this outbreak.

There was one segment in this article that particularly caught my attention...

Major diseases throughout history

Swine flu, 2009, has killed 86 people and affected possibly 1400 others in Mexico since April 13. There are 20 confirmed cases in five US states and suspected cases in Canada and France, and 10 people have tested positive for influenza A in New Zealand.

Avian flu, 1997, killed at least 200 people in Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Romania, China, Russia and Turkey and millions of poultry in Asia, Europe and Africa. The death of a Chinese woman from this virus was recorded earlier this year.

SARS, 2003, the World Health Organisation reported 8098 infected cases and 774 deaths from SARS, which was first reported in China then spread to more than two dozen countries in the US, Europe and Asia. There was one confirmed case in Australia.

Asian flu, 1957, killed one million people around the world and was thought to have started in China.

Spanish flu pandemic, 1918, led to the deaths of between 20 to 100 million people worldwide and was thought to have originated in the US, spreading as far as the remote Pacific Islands.

Black Death plague, 1340s, killed 75 million people worldwide and was thought to have begun in Asia, spreading to Europe and North Africa.

I am all for interesting facts about history, but I feel like this list is somewhat arbitrary and missing some centralization. At first I thought it was a list of diseases that cross-species but AIDS/HIV did not make the cut. Then I thought it was animal flus, as AIDS/HIV is not a flu, but the Spanish flu was listed. The number of deaths range from 87 to 75 million...I just wish this list was slightly more cohesive. I like statistics but I also like themes.

At least now after reading the FAQ article I feel like I know what is going on.

UPDATE: Totally just checked my work email...There is one in there letting me know of resources available to me if I think I have caught Swine Flu. Not even kidding.