How serious is the public health threat of a swine flu epidemic?
The U.S. government has declared swine flu to be a public health emergency. The World Health Organization considers it a global emergency. It remains to be seen how severe swine flu will be in the U.S. and elsewhere, but countries worldwide are monitoring the situation closely and preparing for worst-case scenarios. The World Health Organization has declared swine flu to be a pandemic. That means that all nations can expect to see swine flu infections — and should prepare for them — but does not mean the virus has become more severe. The word “pandemic” refers to the geography of a disease, not to the severity of a disease. The H1N1 swine flu outbreak came at the end of the U.S. flu season. The virus spread across the nation and around the globe in the spring and summer, seasons when flu usually ebbs to nearly undetectable levels in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s very unusual for this to occur. In the Southern Hemisphere, most nations have seen large numbers of H1N1 swine flu cases. F
