Porcine influenza pandemic will affect every fourth inhabitant of the planet

Pig flu virus threatens a quarter of the world's population. According to expert estimates, the World Health Organization (WHO), within two years of deadly disease could spread worldwide, killing seven million people.

As epidemiologists predict virus N1H1, the victims of which are already over 150 people in Mexico, could spread throughout the world for 18-24 months, infected during this time period to 1.5 billion people. The number of deaths that are projected by WHO to reach seven million. And it was only the pig flu: experts fear that the spread of the disease significantly affect the quality of health services at the expense of overcrowding in hospitals and a shortage of staff around the world.

«During the SARS epidemic we have faced the fact that people suffering from cancer and similar diseases, they could not get treatment because of overcrowding in hospitals - says an expert on infectious diseases Dr Lo Win-Luc. - This resulted in a significant mortality hanging ».

Meanwhile, experts have not yet been taken to predict the likelihood of a pandemic influenza pig. As was reported earlier, the WHO has decided to raise the threat of exposure to the virus prior to the fourth N1H1. The next step, a fifth means that the virus adapted to human body and is distributed around the world, six, extreme, the degree - that the disease has become a global epidemic.

As noted by CNN, the last time the world is faced with a pandemic, more than 40 years ago, when Hong Kong flu, proshagav throughout the world, killing nearly a million people. The issue of recognition of the pandemic was raised during the recent outbreaks of avian influenza and SARS, but the viruses that cause these diseases have not been able to spread from person to person.

«Pork flu has passed from person to person, as a result of its much harder to control», - said the head of the department of Microbiology, University of Hong Kong Dr. K. Yen. In addition, the virus N1H1, according to experts, will make every effort to survive and can mutate into an even more serious threat.