Part OneKathleen Sebelius- Health and Human Services "We are cautiously optimistic that what we are seeing right now is presenting itself as a much milder virus than the initial cases identified in Mexico."
Despite this somewhat encouraging analysis, the outbreak of the H1-N1 flu in Mexico has caused schools to close, people to don masks and scientists around the world to swing into gear to understand the threat of this new strain of influenza.
The appearance and rapid rise of a new strain of influenza has sent fear, literally, around the world. The strain, called swine flu in the press, and more technically referred to as H1-N1 influenza of 2009, was first identified in Mexico. It rapidly spread around the world. By late last week 896 cases had been confirmed in 41 states of the United States.
And although the news has tended to focus on cases in Texas, two and a half times that many had been identified in Illinois. New, virulent strains of flu, whether H1-N1, or the scare around the H1-N5 avian flu threat a few years ago, lead people to try to benchmark the threat against what is considered the deadliest plague in history, the 1918-1919 great influenza pandemic. That pandemic killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, accurate numbers of dead in developing countries, especially in India and China, are simply impossible to determine. And the toll in the United States was approximately 675,000. Those numbers are staggering.
13 years ago, I prepared this story on the impact of that flu in Cincinnati.
Most years, flu was aggravating to many and potentially deadly for the very old and very young. But in 1918, the so-called Spanish flu, was different. It attached young, healthy adults with lethal quickness. Margaret Wullenweber was just 3 years old in 1918, but she still remembers what happened to her 23 year old mother, Ruth Schneider. Lauren Wullenweber,"It was Christmas Eve and we had Santa Claus and the whole bunch there and my mother passed out. I remember them taking her to bed. She lived about a week after that."
Compounding the threat, millions of men were living in crowded Army camps, as World War I ground towards its terrible end. The flu swept the world's armies. In fact, fully half of American military deaths in Europe were the result of the flu, not bombs or bullets.
On the home front in Cincinnati, preventive action included washing down streets with disinfectant... closing any factory when 5% of the workforce came down with the flu... and shutting down schools for 9 full weeks.
Things got so desperate, by early November city officials took the drastic step of shutting down Cincinnati's famous saloons at 6 o'clock every night. Despite these measures, medical officials were overwhelmed and confounded. By October, every day brought almost 500 new cases. Hospital wards bulged with sick and dying patients.
To discuss the current flu threat, I am joined this morning by Professor George Smulian, the associate director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
Part TwoThis past week Strive, an educational partnership designed to help Greater Cincinnati children succeed by looking at the entire learning process form birth, through early childhood, elementary, high school and college years to their successful transition into a meaningful job. The focus is on the inner city school systems of Cincinnati, Covington and Newport.
Committed to making decisions about investment of resources based on reliable data, last year Strive published its first progress report, a sort of snapshot attempting to establish baselines of data that can be used to measure future trends. This past week Strive issued its second annual report.
To discuss the significance of the report, I am joined now by Jeff Edmundson, the Executive Director of Strive and Geoff Zimmerman, an analyst working with Strive.
