11 interesting facts about swine flu

1. The first H1N1 ’swine flu’ virus was isolated in a pig in 1930.
2. Swine flu is an acute respiratory disease which affects pigs. In pigs, according to the World Health Organisation, "morbidity tends to be high and mortality low" - which means that it spreads quickly but kills between 1 and 4 per cent of its victims.
3. Before 2009, there was approximately one human Swine Flu infection every 1-2 years in the USA. In 2009, it became a global pandaemic.
4. Pigs are the perfect mixing vessels for what is known as reassortment of flu strains, when genetic material from swine flu, human flu and avian flu is jumbled up to create entirely new influenza strains to which humans have little or no immunity.
5. Seasonal flu viruses (which mutate every year) kill between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year.
   
6. The currrent H1N1 virus contains genetic elements from North American swine flu, North American avian (bird) flu, and human and swine flu strains normally found in Asia and Europe. According to the Centres for Disease Control it is "an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences".
7. You cannot contract swine flu from eating properly cooked pork or pork products.
8. The symptoms produced by the current strain of swine flu resemble those of seasonal flu - fever, coughing, muscle aches and extreme tiredness - but it also appears to cause diarrhoea.
9. In Australia, 1 in 10 work leave associated with illness is due to influenza
10. The currrent H1N1 virus contains genetic elements from North American swine flu, North American avian (bird) flu, and human and swine flu strains normally found in Asia and Europe. According to the Centres for Disease Control it is "an unusually mongrelised mix of genetic sequences".
11. The most lethal flu pandemic of the past century was also caused by a swine flu strain. One billion people are thought to have contracted "Spanish flu" in 1918-19, of whom around 50 million were killed - although the death toll could have been much higher.