The 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic

In the last unit of my STEAM class Disease at GCE, we learned about the trend of how certain diseases spread. A large part of this unit was learning about how the R-naught of a disease tells how contagious or dangerous a disease could be. For our Action Project, we made a newspaper article about a contagious disease of our choice. My choice of the swine flu was made largely because of a personal encounter I had with it in the past. One part of this project that challenged me was wrapping my head around the use of the Gapminder software. I was easily able to overcome this by better exploring the tools and information it has to offer.

Article. LS. 2016

New Flu Mutation Found in California, Sweeps the World

In April 2009, a new strand of the H1N1 virus was found in a young boy in California. Scientist’s concluded that the virus was had originally developed among animals but had mixed with human variations of the disease. Only two days later another case of the strange disease had been found over 100 miles away in southern California. Not too long later the sickness had spread to tens of countries and was affecting millions worldwide. The disease is estimated to have killed 284,000 in total since the pandemic's beginning in 2009. This disease is a pandemic because of it’s major affect in multiple parts of the world.

H1N1 by Confirmed Community Outbreaks. Menegaz, Felipe. 2009

Symptoms of the disease of very similar to seasonal flu strains. Coughing, nausea/vomiting, sore throat, and fever are very common symptoms. The disease can be spread via airborne droplets or germ covered surfaces. Coughing or sneezing onto another person or a surface which another person would then touch could spread the disease.

The R-naught (R-0) for a disease tells how fast a disease will spread/reproduce on average in a population. From my research I found that the R-0 of Swine flu is around 1.6. Since it's higher than 1, we can expect the disease to spread and thrive in a population. Without a vaccine, the disease will grow as long as there are new people to infect make it's way through a large amount of people.

One major factor for the spread of the disease is transportation. Since global transportation has drastically evolved, any person with any disease can be on the direct other part of the world in under 24 hours. Because of this, the swine flu virus was able to be transported to many different locations before people were even able to recognize the fact that it was a new and dangerous form of the flu.

Another large risk factor of swine flu is having young and elderly people that are more susceptible to catching it. We can use the Gapminder software to illustrate how this factor makes certain countries have a higher chance of having more people contract swine flu in modern day. According to the most recent data on the site, Uganda and the Congo Democratic Republic are the countries that are the most at risk. This is because they are the two countries with the highest amount of children and elderly per 100 adults. The disease could spread better through a population with more people at a higher risk.

LS. Children & Elderly vs Cars, Trucks, and Busses. 2016

The length of the pandemic was not too long as it only lasted until 2010. By April, it was determined that the swine flu was no longer a pandemic. The decline of the pandemic can be attributed to the development of a vaccine. With its development towards the end of the pandemic, the amount of cases started to slow to reasonable numbers. In current day, this particular strand of H1N1 is equivalent to the seasonal flu.

The best way to prevent any swine flu outbreak in the future is to get people protected. Getting the vaccine is the best possible way to protect yourself from contracting H1N1. Other day-to-day things you can do is actively washing your hands and avoiding touching your face as much as possible. Publicly advocating the importance of a flu shot in all countries across the world and making sure the price of one is as low as possible can keep another epidemic from occurring.

Works Cited

"The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic: Summary Highlights, April 2009-April 2010." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 June 2010. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"The International Response to the Influenza Pandemic: WHO Responds to the Critics." World Health Organization. World Health Organization, n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"The Newspaper Clipping Generator." The Newspaper Clipping Generator - Create Your Own Fun Newspaper. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

Ross, Robert. "CDC Estimate of Global H1N1 Pandemic Deaths: 284,000." Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Regents of the University of Minnesota, 27 June 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.

"Swine Flu (H1N1)." Healthline. Healthline Media, 14 Dec. 2015. Web. 16 Mar. 2016.