Flu Epidemic

Flu Epidemic

by Connor West -
Number of replies: 1

I do believe that there will eventually be another flu epidemic. The big reason I think this is because flu viruses are very good at mutating and changing sporadically. For example, with both the swine flu and influenza epidemic, they  both hopped from animals to humans. Now, it is very hard for this to work all the time, because the virus has to infect humans, replicate in humans, and spread easily among humans(Gretchen,2015). Like I said, flu viruses mutate and change all the time. Even though it is a one and a million chance for the virus to efficiently do all three functions above, I don't think a flu epidemic in the future will be as severe as the influenza one just because of the medical technology we have today. I think with the influenza epidemic epidemiologists were not as educated on the mutation of diseases as they should be as well as educating citizens the proper precautions to take for preventing the disease.  There will be a flu epidemic though in the future, just not as many deaths. Another reason why, is there will always be countries in poverty, and when countries are in poverty they can't afford the same education to educate citizens on how to prevent diseases as well as proper infrastructure and materials needed. There will always be a new animal spreading a flu virus, and with the amount of times the virus changes it will eventually be able to hop over to humans and replicate, it is just a matter of time. 

 Vogel, Gretchen. “Narcolepsy Link to Pandemic Flu Vaccine Becomes Clearer.” Science, vol. 349, no. 6243, Feb. 2015, pp. 17–17., doi:10.1126/science.349.6243.17.

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In reply to Connor West

Re: Flu Epidemic

by Cassidy Dickson -
I totally agree with you on there being another flu epidemic! I also agree that our technology have increased tremendously since the flu of 1918. We have more vaccines and medical treatment for harmful viruses. Also, things are changing everyday, especially with new technology and new discoveries of treatments for some viruses. With that being said I feel like you are incredibly right, there might be another flu epidemic, but with the new discoveries we will be able to isolate it quickly. But, of course with the poverty being very high, it will be hard to help everyone, so of course the virus will spread.

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