Suburban Superbug Scare Just A Preview Of Real Threat
October 23, 2007 by mimmson
Filed under Flu Pandemic - Top News Stories
Most people believe they are indestructible and immortal. Especially teenagers.
So just because a couple of Naperville high school football players were diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant infection, dont expect their teammates and friends to heed warnings against sharing towels, razors and water bottles.
The “superbug,” known as MRSA for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureas, has been around for a long time. It used to infect primarily hospital patients. Then, in the 1990s, it began invading prep and pro locker rooms, usually through skin-to-skin contact and the sharing of personal hygiene items.
And just because schools in some states are being shut down and federal health officials expect almost 20,000 people to die this year from MRSA infections more than from AIDS dont expect the government to be able to stop it from happening.
But as Ronald Reagan used to end his stump-speeches, “you aint seen nothin yet.”
The staph outbreak is just a prelude to the coming human sickness that has public health experts as traumatized as Ellen DeGeneres was over her dog adoption. And it has received far, far less attention.
What would you say if someone told you that 99,000 people were going to die from the germ of the future? Not around the world … in Illinois alone.
Not that 99,000 people in Illinois might die from it, but that they will die. Just a matter of when.
That is the preview from public health experts of what is to come when the next, drug resistant, pandemic flu outbreak sweeps the United States.
The Illinois numbers are part of a state-by-state breakdown commissioned by the U.S. Pandemic Preparedness Initiative and released with little fanfare last spring.
The report, researched by the health advocacy group “Trust for Americas Health,” based its findings on an outbreak as severe as the 1918 American pandemic.
Besides the 99,000 deaths in Illinois, the report projects nearly 3.8 million workers would become sick in our state and have to stay home.
The economic impact of such a modern pandemic on Illinois would be $31.3 billion. That would represent a 5.6 percent drop in the state economy.
According to the report, a severe flu outbreak could plunge the nation into the second worst recession since World War II.
Unlike the staph infection outbreak that is affecting a few communities for a short time here and there, an actual pandemic of the flu would affect everyone everywhere and could last a year and a half composed in waves of six to eight weeks.
What to do? Last week the American Academy of Pediatrics cited some gaps that need to be filled immediately if we are to head-off a deadly flu onslaught against children-who are among the most susceptible.
The AAP reported:
• There are only 100,000 doses of antivirals for children in the Strategic National Stockpile. There are currently 73.6 million children in the U.S.
