The NAME is the heart of Mexico City, a giant public area filled with crowds at all hours. A photograph taken last week shows it nearly empty. The same is true for every other public area in the city. Coffee shops are closed. Churches silent. Football matches played to empty stadiums.

Before and after 1918, most influenza pandemics developed in Asia and spread from there to the rest of the world. In 1918 the Spanish Flu killed more than fifty million people. This time, it killed over a hundred people. On February, 2009, the first death was reported from a new strain of this killer virus.

It is spreading across other continents of the world too. Now, it has spread to more than 20 countries. Confirmed reports say the total number of infected people with Type A (H1N1) has increased to 1893 people. The total number of dead people is 29 Mexicans and 2 Americans. It has spread very quickly from Mexico to America, then Israel, New Zealand and today Canada. It still continues spreading to other counties in Asia such as South Korea and Hong Kong.

This virus began from pigs in the Oaxaca province of Mexico, and shortly thereafter spread to humans. The sudden ability of the new swine flu virus to hop from pigs to humans and then to skip from person to person, at least in Mexico, is an excellent example of evolution at work, and comes from the mixing of two older swine flu viruses, both descendants of the 1918 flu strain.

The authorities of Mexico said their country could control swine flu but in Mexico the number of infected people is still increasing every day. But if it could have been stopped, it shouldn’t have spread across to Asia or other parts of the world. Despite the WHO’s best efforts and the efforts of governments worldwide, swine fly continues to spread. This virus cannot be stopped.

And it may get worse. Bird flu killed many people, but it was difficult to catch. While swine flu was easy to catch, but not very dangerous. If both viruses mixed together it will be very dangerous. The result could all too easily be a virus that is transmitted as easily as swine flu . . . and that kills as quickly as bird flu.

The total number of dead people from swine flu is not likely to reach the same numbers as in 1918, even though the Spanish flu came from same virus, because today the world has developed and has higher medical technology.

Nevertheless, the virus has been transformed, and becomes more aggressive. It is still spreading, and more people get infected. The warning is one cannot be certain about anything.

Therefore, we should always keep ourselves updated with news about this virus.

sources: http://www.who.int/csr/don/2009_05_06d/en/index.html http://www.livescience.com/health/090428-swine-flu-viral-evolution.html http://www.symptoms101.com/med/archives/2005/05/spanish_flu_swi.php