10 MCQs
Answer the following questions:
What is swine influenza?
Swine influenza, or “swine flu”, is a highly contagious acute respiratory disease of pigs, caused by one of several swine influenza A viruses. Morbidity tends to be high and mortality low (1-4%). The virus is spread among pigs by aerosols, direct and indirect contact, and asymptomatic carrier pigs. Outbreaks in pigs occur year round, with an increased incidence in the fall and winter in temperate zones. Many countries routinely vaccinate swine populations against swine influenza.
Swine influenza viruses are most commonly of the H1N1 subtype, but other subtypes are also circulating in pigs (e.g., H1N2, H3N1, H3N2). Pigs can also be infected with avian influenza viruses and human seasonal influenza viruses as well as swine influenza viruses. The H3N2 swine virus was thought to have been originally introduced into pigs by humans. Sometimes pigs can be infected with more than one virus type at a time, which can allow the genes from these viruses to mix. This can result in an influenza virus containing genes from a number of sources, called a "reassortant" virus. Although swine influenza viruses are normally species specific and only infect pigs, they do sometimes cross the species barrier to cause disease in humans.
Source: WHO
What drugs are available for treatment?
There are two classes of such medicines, 1) adamantanes (amantadine and remantadine), and 2) inhibitors of influenza neuraminidase (oseltamivir and zanamivir).
Most of the previously reported swine influenza cases recovered fully from the disease without requiring medical attention and without antiviral medicines.
Some influenza viruses develop resistance to the antiviral medicines, limiting the effectiveness of treatment. The viruses obtained from the recent human cases with swine influenza in the United States are sensitive to oselatmivir and zanamivir but resistant to amantadine and remantadine.
Information is insufficient to make recommendation on the use of the antivirals in treatment of swine influenza virus infection. Clinicians have to make decisions based on the clinical and epidemiological assessment and harms and benefit of the treatment of the patient. For the ongoing outbreak of the swine influenza infection in the United States and Mexico, the national and the local authorities are recommending to use oseltamivir or zanamivir for treatment of the disease based on the virus’s susceptibility profile.
To protect yourself, practice general preventive measures for influenza:
If there is an ill person at home:
If you are living in a country where swine influenza has caused disease in humans, follow additional advice from national and local health authorities.
Source: WHO
Have a look at this ridiculous exam.
Write essays on the following:
According to BBC:
"A five centimetre section of fir tree has been removed from a man's lung, Russian surgeons claim.
Doctors were investigating a suspected tumour in Artyom Sidorkin's lung, when they were surprised by a very different kind of trouble."
"Idiopathic is an adjective used primarily in medicine meaning arisin spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause. From Greek, idios (one's own) + pathos (suffering), it means approximately "a disease of its own kind.""
"In his book The Human Body, Isaac Asimov noted a comment about the term "idiopathic" made in the 20th edition of Stedman's Medical Dictionary: "A high-flown term to concealignorance." Similarly, in the American television show House, the title character remarks that the word "comes from the Latin, meaning 'we're idiots, because we don't know what's causing it.'""
Pedo
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