Revenge of the Swine Flu...

Alternate Title: Swine Flu II: Electric Boogaloo...

Here's the latest OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE from the people that brought you the Swine Flu pandemic:

Scientists find new superbug spreading from India

A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India -- in part because of medical tourism -- and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it.

Researchers said on Wednesday they had found a new gene called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, in patients in South Asia and in Britain.

NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems, and experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it.

First thought: Didn't they just recent announce that the Swine Flu pandemic (that was ZOMG GOING TO KILL US ALL BY MELTING OUR FACES OFF) was winding down?

Second thought: Speaking of the Swine Flu, wasn't there a little brouhaha over the fact that a third of the members of the WHO Swine Flu Advisory Council had ties to the pharmaceutical industry?

Third thought: "Medical tourism" is leading to cases of this "superbug" being brought back to England? Huh? Doesn't England have free universal health care, a system that we are being told to emulate here in the US? Aren't the Europeans so much more enlightened that the evil ol' capitalist USA in that they offer free health care to their citizens? Why, then, would anyone need to travel to India for medical care?

In any case, it's another item to tack on the list of the Taxonomy of Modern Dangers...

That is all.

Hittin' the Pig Time...

From one local newspaper:

Absenteeism is up in some schools in the Pentucket Regional School District, prompting Superintendent Paul Livingston to issue an H1N1 flu update to parents yesterday afternoon.

Livingston said "a high number" of students for this time of year are absent from the Bagnall School in [G.ville] due to flu-like symptoms, with the Page Elementary School in [town next to G.ville] reporting a "slightly higher-than-typical" rate of students out. The four other schools in the district — Sweetsir and Donaghue elementary schools and the middle and high schools — currently have rates considered normal for midautumn, the superintendent said in a phone interview yesterday.

(No link; it's such a small town that I've probably given enough information out as it is).


Yep. Our sleepy little 'burb has been hit hard by the H1N1 virus. My daughter reports that less than half her class was present today. According to sources at the school, over a hundred kids were out on Monday (TheBoy included). It got so bad that the PTA (Mrs. G. is the secretary) canceled the annual Halloween party - this is the first year since they started putting on the Halloween party that it has been canceled. They decided to err on the side of caution and not offer up a giant germ smorgasbord. Go figure.

TheBoy has been temperature-free for nearly 24 hours now, and if he wakes up with a normal temp he's going to school for the first time since Friday. He's the first wave returning, as the flu seems to have hit last Friday, aided and abetted by a series of Halloween and birthday parties over the weekend that put fledgling carriers in close proximity to one another as the virus was just starting to break out. The perfect storm of epidemiology, if you will.

We've apparently been extremely fortunate - there have been no reported cases where the virus caused significant harm to any of the afflicted kids. Those affected reported moderate to high temperatures, aches, pains, chills, etc. - all consistent with a flu virus; all are on the mend after several days of rest and isolation. There was no need for a national emergency declaration nor a sweeping quarantine from the state.

Just plain old common sense, rest, and keeping your damn sick kids away from the healthy ones.

That is all.