Lessons learned from Bird flu and now Swine flu

Some timeline on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome 1st case was discovered in Winter 2002, but nobody outside out Chinese government knew of outbreak. It's not until February 2003 http://www.who.int/ was notified. The economic impact of this epidemic toll on Asia some estimated at $11 billion (World Bank).



I remember people were canceling trips to Asia (40% of flight were canceled). And I heard lot of comment on the street regard to the colorful surgical facemask people wears in Asia. It comes in all kind of size and color...

Back to present day, I'm not making fun of those masks, now the outbreak of Swine flu (H1N1) is inside the U.S (CDC) boarder. I have heard Home Depot, Walgreens in the effected area (see google map) are selling out those surgical mask.

Of course the death toll of H1N1 has not reach the speed or the spread of H5N1 (media??) but if we do not taking a drastic step and react to this "outbreak" things may get even worst(by the media??). This will effect the already WEAKEN economic. Talk about "The Wold is Flat" (yes I'm reading Thomas Friedman's book, will have blog about it later).

The sales have plunged for pork producers around the world. Egypt began slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs on Wednesday, even though no cases have been reported there. WHO says eating pork is safe, but Mexicans have even cut back on their beloved greasy pork tacos.


Reference:
An archive article of business week 2003 on SARS
Google's experimental Flu Trends for Mexico (there is also one for United Stats).


I'll return with more link soon... after I buy my mask from a local drug store.