Violence... The story so far

June 2002; Dec 2003

Influenza Symptoms and other informaton here.

Stuffy nose, wet hacking cough, and upper respiratory difficulties indicate influenza.

Influenza is a contagious virus disease with strains of different virility. The pandemic of 1918 left some 15,000,000 people dead. Most of these victims died of secondary infections like pneumonia.

Influenza infects a number of animal species and mutates readily into new more or less virulent forms.

As a bioweapon it falls quite short unless the terrorist has created a mutation of deadly virulence and an effective vaccine with which to inoculate him/her self. Although the chances of this are very very low, they are finite. The possibility will increase with time.

The very old and very young are particularly vulnerable and should have vaccine shots annually. Since pneumonia is often a secondary illness, pneumonia shots are recommended for these age groups.