...a potential influenza pandemic by buying medicines, running disaster drills, and developing strategies for tighter border controls. On the other hand, a survey of global companies by London-based newsletter Continuity Central found that 72 percent have not even begun to get ready for a potential bird flu pandemic. Businesses in the U.S. seem to be particularly unprepared. In a survey by Deloitte & Touche of 100 U.S. executives, two-thirds said their companies had not yet prepared adequately for avian flu, and most have not one specifically in charge of such a plan. What these businesses might not realize is how they potentially will be affected. For instance, how will they continue to do their business if their workforce is ill or quarantined; if transportation, communication, utility services of other necessary public infrastructure functions are not available or are only available in limited areas; or if financial services are curtailed? How will they earn revenues if the general public is sick or not able to venture out? It’s a scenario with monumental implications for both the short term and the long term. One company that has panned for any potential avian flu outbreak is Deutsche Bank. The steps it has taken include making sure employees in infected zones don’t carry the disease to co-workers, moving others out of harm’s way, communicating medical bulletins to far-flung offices, and preparing for the inevitable economic shocks as mass illness slows trade and undermines...
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...Bird Flu of H5N1 virus threatens world pandemic Public health has traditionally been an area of concern as anything that poses a threat to humans should be considered a top priority societally. From a global standpoint if public health is neglected then the amount of preventable deaths would rise exponentially. In the past few years several events have been noted as threats to public health, but society had identified them quick enough so that the threat to humans was minimized. One such event occurred in 2006 and was known as the bird flu. Although there is currently no vaccine for this strain of bird flu the rapid identification of this deadly virus helped to minimize its spread. According to Medline, birds just like humans can be stricken with the flu but the virus historically only affected avian species without the potential to affect humans. This remained true until 1997 in Hong Kong when the first case of the avian flu was reported. This avian virus has the ability to mutate or change its genetic makeup so that it can be easily incorporated into the human genome, thus causing a new form of flu that can be deadly and difficult to treat. Since 1997 the avian flu has spread to several countries and has severely affected both the commercial poultry supply and humans alike. Although the viral transition to infecting humans is rare, the avian flu is responsible for approximately 600 infections since its inception with a mortality rate of 60% (National Library of Medicine...
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...briefing at 0600 (6:00 a.m.,). Once I was dressed and reported in for the briefing, I was informed there was an outbreak of Swine Flu coming from out of Mexico. I was to gather my Soldiers and inform them of this information and to ensure we had no family members in danger and leaves and passes were suspended until further notice. The significance of the event of a Swine Flu outbreak was headline news in most newspapers across the nation. In The New York Times April 27, 2009, an article titled, U.S. Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu (McNeil, Jr., 2012), illustrates the reason for my call early in the morning and why the need to put my Company on alert. The article outlined the possible global pandemic stemming from swine flu cases from Mexico. In the United States 20 cases of the swine flu were confirmed during this time, leading American health officials declaring a public health emergency. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed eight illnesses from the H1N1virus in Queens, NY. Those illnesses came from St. Francis Preparatory School and prompted the Mayor of NY Michael R. Bloomberg to ensure the community that all those cases had been mild, and that city hospitals were not reporting an increase in severe lung infections caused by the virus (McNeil, Jr., 2010). Swine Flu in humans is called Influenza A H1N1 (Swine Flu). The swine flu virus is a respiratory illness found in pigs (swine). The A H1N1 is a virus that was believed to have derived from...
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...Introduction Where do happy cows actually come from? Most of our minds create an image of large fields where cows and other animals are free to roam and graze. In reality, however, most farms today are actually large corporate factories, not the vast fields and red barns that most Americans imagine. These consolidated operations known as CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) are able to produce meats in high volume but have little to no regard for animal or human welfare, the environment, or food safety. CAFOs in the United States are able to produce and process these large amounts of meat year-round by providing sheltered farms for a range of livestock such as cattle, swine, and sheep. However, within these farms animals are confined in limited spaces, making living conditions increasingly unhealthy and unsanitary. Brian Walsh, an environmental columnist at Time Magazine, observed that pigs are sometimes “packed so tightly with other swine that many of their curly tails have been chopped off so they won’t bite one another.” Conditions like these are prime locations for diseases to thrive and spread throughout the livestock. Although antibacterial immunizations are provided to the pigs, the bacteria and other viruses are constantly altering, leading to untreatable infections that can be easily passed onto workers and consumers. Contributing to the threat of new diseases, CAFOs contain massive pileups of feces and other excrements which do not provide safe living...
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... Arguably, the pandemics that occurred before the 2009 H1N1 outbreak were more devastating because we lacked the benefit of information technology to, swiftly and in real time, gather data from diverse locations and process them into information that would guide public health leaders to decisively confront the problem. Application of the combination of business intelligence, information systems, the internet and the World Wide Web offers an opportunity to gather geographic- and location-related data, in real time, to better understand regional and local health trends. Besides tracking viral outbreaks, these systems have been applied in assessing risks, evaluating treats, maintaining situational awareness, documenting disparity, notifying communities and ensuring focused allocation of resources such as vaccines and antivirals. According to Salinksy and Gursky, "the most important building block for improving disease surveillance and timely outbreak response, and for optimizing efficiencies in public health's traditional community-based programs and delivery of personal health care services, will be realized through electronic information systems. The gains in accuracy, effectiveness, resource tracking, and cost savings (to name a few) clearly justify sound and robust investments in the implementation of information technology (IT) solutions throughout the entirety of the public health sector." An Influenza outbreak is transboundary and does not respect any territorial or geographical...
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...SWINE FLU Jennifer Lee Gary HCS/457 March 7, 2012 Reginald Bernard “SWINE FLU” Influenza, or “flu”, as it is more commonly known, is a ubiquitous in the disease profile of any developed or developing country. Many thousands of people fall victim to seasonal flu each year, recovering just as quickly. Only the very debilitated or immunosuppressed have life-threatening squealed. Flu also shows a “cyclic” trend where “epidemics” of flu occur every 6-7 years. In these years greater than an average expected number of people fall ill due to flu but these epidemics last only about a year or two Recently, (or as research shows not so recently), a new strain of influenza has come to light called “swine” flu. Also called pig or hog flu, this strain of influenza causes respiratory disease in pigs, hogs and other swine. The symptoms manifested are barking cough, poor appetite, lethargy and malaise. Alarmingly, this strain of influenza is readily transmissible to humans and causes much the same symptoms in humans as it does in pigs. Origin of the H1N1 Strain The origins of swine flu are unclear. Many researchers say that the outbreak was first localized in March of 2009 in a village in Mexico, when...
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...Influenza A/H5 Detection Kit otherwise known as the avian flu detection kit was produced in 2006 before the merger. Thus, Applied Biosystems would be the more appropriate company for the comparison instead. Applied Biosystems Inc. was first established in 1981, and has a reputation for producing top quality instruments for diagnostic research. Moreover, the scales of both companies differ greatly. Applied Biosystems has approximately 5000 staff that work under them whereas Veredus has about 20-30 staff. The level of technology and expertise that the firm possesses is equivalent to that of a listed company, in order for Veredus Laboratories to be able to compete with such big market players in the industry and to emerge as a formidable force to be reckon with,. Thus, Applied Biosystems is definitely a strong competitor of Veredus Laboratories with its vast experience. Applied Biosystems developed the TaqMan Influenza A/H5 Detection Kit (Taqman) in 2006, which is capable of detecting the avian influenza in laboratory samples reliably and quickly. Instead of the usual traditional testing which requires up to 10 days for the results to be analyzed, the Taqman requires only 2 hours. This detection kit is very similar to the one that catapulted Veredus Laboratories to its position today, the Avian Influenza Virus H5N1 Detection Kit, which was also produced in 2006. Both products serve the same purpose in terms of detecting the avian flu by using the...
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...The Spanish Flu was the most devastating pandemic our world has ever seen. Even though few medical records exist, historians believe that 20 – 100 million people were killed by this flu. Despite the number of deaths and the severity and geographic reach of this disease, it merits little attention in the history books. Today one of our greatest medical threats is AIDS. The Spanish Flu is exponential compared to AIDS casualties (Gloria). The Spanish Flu of 1918-19 affected our world like no other disease in history. It changed the ways people sought medical help, the ways physicians treated illness, the role of medical researchers and how society, particularly medical and political leaders respond to pandemic diseases. Influenza is a unique respiratory viral disease infecting the whole respiratory tract-namely, the nose, sinuses, the throat, lungs, and even the middle ear. The disease spreads from person to person by airborne droplets produced when an infected individual coughs or sneezes. Acute symptoms of influenza, including fever, headache, shivering, muscle pain, cough, and pneumonia, are the result of the virus replicating in the respiratory tract, in which infected cells die and slough off (Rosenberg). The Spanish Flu got its name from newspaper reports of that period. It was thought that the influenza infection was carried form Asia to Spain during World War I. During WWI Spain remained neutral and the government did not censor the press. Spanish papers were filled...
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...[pic] OUMH 1203 ENGLISH FOR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION ASSIGNMENT TITLE STORIES ON VIOLENT ‘MAT REMPIT’ Name anuar Matric number 791020-11-5301-001 NRIC 791020-11-5301 Telephone number 019-9843040 E-mail address annwady@yahoo.com Tutor’s name: MR TAE PENG HOI Learning Centre: OUM Chendering MAY 2009 SEMESTER PART A / BAHAGIAN A QUESTION 1 / SOALAN 1 State the following variables as discrete, continuous or qualitative. a) Amount of mineral water in cartons. Answer : Continuous , because of it can be obtained by measuring process. b) Unemployment rate recorded in a city as of June 2009. Answer : Discrete , because of it can be obtained by counting process. c) Total number of influenza A H1N1 cases in Malaysia. Answer : Continuous , because of it can be obtained by measuring process. d) Types of available lunch set at a fast food restaurant. Answer : Qualitative , because of it just the name of a category and contain no numerical value. e ) Capacity of a gas container. Answer : Discrete , because of it can be obtained by counting process. QUESTION 2 / SOALAN 2 State the following qualitative variables as nominal or ordinal. a) Blood type of respondents. Answer: Nominal , because of it just the name of a category and contain no numerical value. b) Public awareness level...
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...Ebola’s Effects on the Economy The Ebola virus is a deadly, contagious disease that spreads via contact with bodily fluids of someone who is infected and exhibiting symptoms. Since it’s introduction in 1976, the virus has resurfaced 14 times, the most recent being the outbreak in the West African countries. (Legrand et al., 2007) While the effects on the health of the general public are the most prevalent in society, Ebola also has several economic impacts: public paranoia, implementation of new public policy, and decreases population. Once Ebola spreads to a country, the general mentality of the public becomes paranoid that they are susceptible to the disease wherever they go. This fear of contagion can cause people to stop showing up for work altogether to avoid all risks of infection. This decrease in supply of labor leads to a decrease in output, or a decrease in the size of the production possibility frontier because the country does not have the labor capital to be as productive as it was before. A decrease in the PPF is reflected in a decrease in the gross domestic product of the country. The government suffers from this decrease in GDP because it is no longer receiving as much tax revenue as it was before because it has fewer goods to tax. Another effect of this behavior aversion is a decreased demand of normal goods due to low expectations of income in the near future. The less people think they will earn in the future, the less they will spend now. This decrease...
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...over the course of time, but one of the common virus that was well known in the 1800s was the 1918 Influenza virus. The Influenza Virus of 1918 was a very serious and dreadful virus that is often called the “Global Disaster.” This virus had made a lot of adults and children get very ill or sick and often leading to death. The Influenza virus was most current during the Great War in Europe of the year 1918. The Influenza Virus of 1918 was a very serious and dreadful virus, and is one of the most dangerous virus out during the time of 1918 (Virus.Stanford.edu.) Influenza Virus of 1918, was a big kill threat to elderly people ( 65 likely to die ) and very young children about the age of ( 1 year or younger...and often times older, ) but the flu was most commonly a threat of ages 15 to 65. The Great War of 1918, was a time when the Americans were finally going to war against Germans to win ( Virus.Stanford.edu.) This was also a time were the Americans were in trenches with the worst conditions and viruses developed all throughout...
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...pandemics that’s struck the earth in human history. This pandemic the “Spanish Flu” spread so rapidly and had an extremely high mortality rate. This was caused by the close contact of humans and poor cleanliness and sanitation, and the host (virus) and the body taking harsh action to excrete the “invader”. The Great Influenza of 1918 the “Spanish Flu” started in birds as in all influenzas. The virus mutated through other animals and then had the right genes to make human to human contact possible with high transferability. The virus is so gruesome and causes your body to react so violently that it tears the tissue in the lungs, and basically causes you to drown in your own blood. Victims would even turn dark blue because of lack of oxygen because of restricted breathing caused by blood in lungs and air passageways. Medical officials could not even identify some of the victims as white or negro, because of discoloration of skin. Victims would also turn extremely white, and have blood excrete from mouth and nasal passages. This caused mass turmoil and death, people were buried in mass graves and over 50 million died of this flu in a 2 year period, and brought great awareness to disease and importance of health and hygiene. William Henry Welch the most powerful individual in the history of American medicine and one of the most knowledgeable was worried of how vicious the Spanish flu is. The Spanish flu...
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...Assignment --- Population Questions Canada experienced an increase of births during WWII while during WWI it experienced a decline. There are three reasons for that. Firstly, a larger percentage of Canadian men went overseas during WWI than in WWII, and many more lost their lives: 60,661 in WWI; 42,042 in WWII. Moreover, in August 1918, almost as many Canadian were killed by a worldwide influenza epidemic as fell victim to enemy fire during the war. Both calamities reduced the numbers of Canadians in child-producing age groups. Secondly, while WWI followed a period of prosperity and high fertility, WWII followed the Depression. People had been postponing having families in the 1930s, and those in a position to start having children during WWII were eager to do so. Lastly, Canada's economy got a bigger boost from WWII than from WWI. As a result, Canadian incomes rose, and rising incomes always mean increased demand for everything, including children. It is always a advantage to be part of a small cohort, you can study in a smaller class at school and therefore had more attention from the teacher. And when it is time to go out to work, there are fewer competitors for what jobs are available. So, people can find a job easier. Foot believed elderly women would be particularly vulnerable during the late 20th century, because women live six years longer than men, on average. So when their husband died, they are still living in the world. Therefore, their children have to take the...
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...Flu of 1918 Literature & Communications Flu of 1918 Introduction/Thesis Do you know what disease took more lives than World I and II, The Korean War, and the Vietnam War all together? It was the Flu of 1918. The Flu of 1918 is an Infectious disease that caused a worldwide fear. It killed thousands upon thousands of people, and it helped us learn how some diseases spread. I. Health A. Symptoms B. II. Economy A. Where did it hit first B. What did it do to city life? III. Education A. When did they shut down schools and how long. B. Did the Flu affect the school system? IV. Environmental/Ecology A. Did it affect the animals? B. Did it affect the plants? V. Other types of Flu A. B. Conclusion Do you know what disease took more lives than World I and II, The Korean War, and the Vietnam War all together? It was the Flu of 1918. The Flu of 1918 is an Infectious disease that caused a worldwide fear. It killed thousands upon thousands of people, and it helped us learn how some diseases spread. The victims of the 1918 Spanish flu suffered greatly. Within hours of feeling the first symptoms of extreme fatigue, fever, and headache, victims would start turning blue. Sometimes the blue color became so pronounced that it was difficult to determine a patient's original skin color. The patients would cough with such force that some even tore their abdominal muscles. Foamy blood exited from their mouths and noses. A few bled from their ears...
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...The Broad Street cholera outbreak was a severe outbreak of cholera that occurred near Broad Street in the Soho district of London, England in 1854. This outbreak is best known for the physician John Snow's study of the outbreak and his discovery that contaminated water, not air, spread cholera. This discovery came to influence public health and the construction of improved sanitation facilities beginning in the 19th century. Later, the term "focus of infection" would be used to describe places like the Broad Street pump in which conditions are good for transmission of an infection. In the mid-19th century, the Soho district of London had a serious problem with filth due to the large influx of people and a lack of proper sanitary services: the London sewer system had not reached Soho. Many cellars (basements) had cesspools underneath their floorboards. Since the cesspools were overrunning, the London government decided to dump the waste into the River Thames. That specific action contaminated the water supply, leading to a cholera outbreak. On 31 August 1854, after several other outbreaks had occurred elsewhere in the city, a major outbreak of cholera reached Soho. John Snow, the physician who eventually linked the outbreak to contaminated water, later called it "the most terrible outbreak of cholera which ever occurred in this kingdom."[1] Over the next three days, 127 people on or near Broad Street died. In the next week, three quarters of the residents had fled the area....
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