Swine flu outbreak closes Berlin school

A Berlin high school will be closed for a week beginning on Monday due to eight cases of swine flu, city health officials announced.

"Further positive cases must be expected," a statement said of the Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium in the city's Köpenick district, adding that the first eight cases had only "light symptoms."

Students first reported the illness on Thursday and were sent home and treated with antiviral medication Tamiflu. Among those who came down with the swine flu are visiting students from Texas who were supposed to return home this weekend.

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According to my girlfriend's friend who works in the Gesundheitsamt they have been put on hight alert and hope that the limited S-Bahn continues.
I'm staying off public transport for the time being, too many sweating sneezing cretans although according to her we won't feel the impact until Sept - Oct. I asked her if you caught it once and had only mild symptoms could you catch it again or would you be immune? She didn't seem to have a clear answer. Anyone else have an idea?

There was an interview on BBC website a couple of weeks ago...some bigshot medical guy, can't remember, but what I do remember is that he said if you catch the "mild version" now, you are immunue against the possibly "stronger version" of the flu later on in the year.

Thank you I may just get on the S-Bahn after all. I actually think I may have had it two weeks ago and I had all of the symptoms. Perhaps I should have stayed at home but that teaching job is paying for my holidays this year.

To answer and to clarify: if you catch a milder version, your are not automatically immune from stronger variants! The hope is that any new variants will not be so different and some, I repeat - some, immunity will carry over to at least lessen the symptoms of any new variants that you are not necessarily wholly immune to. There is however no guarantee on this or any scenario.

There have actually been cases of swine flu parties back home (same idea as the chicken pox parties our parents took us to a children). This is extremely dangerous and Canadian news media were all over it during the weekend. Yes, normally you would have immunity to mutated / possible more severe strains after having a mild infection... BUT there is no guarantee! Until labs are able to fully characterize this strain, and the human immune response to it, definitely better to continue with precautions.
Cheers,

Thank you very much for the info. You appear to be informed so may I ask you how serious this may turn out to be in the Fall and why is this such different worry for the WHO?

I'm surprised that the outbreak has travelled so far. Hopefully it is nothing serious come Autumn.

Oh it is going to be serious. According that friend of my girlfriend's at the Ministry Of Health the they are trying to prepare for a 1/3 infection rate. The odd thing that has started to happen is the virus is mutating very quickly and the anti flu drugs are becoming ineffective. This is just the start she says. As for the outbreak traveling of course it will we all move around the planet very quickly these days. In the old days if people on a ship picked up a virus they would have been dead by the time their ship was found. Ebola was a perfect example.

Not good then, the expected infection rate is high. I've heard that there was at least one case where the infection mutated to the point of anti-flu vaccination being completely ineffective.

Anti-flu vaccination is usually just a guess to which virus will attack the next year. I stopped taking it, because for me the side effects of the vaccine were higher than the flu I would have got.
HAL5000: it's not healthy to live in panic. You should know that when there's an accident, more people die of heart attack having witnessed the accident, than in the accidents themselves. The panic you're in will cause bigger damage to your health than the possible infection of swine flu, which is mild, by the way.

That's the problem as I have a heart condition and am worried about the consequences. As you say this could kill me in an odd mobius strip fashion.

Berlin thanks you

Here is a picture of my welcoming committee to Berlin yesterday. A passenger on my flight from NY was sick so it was considered to be swine flu. The plane was quarantined, the sick passenger removed, we were all asked embarrassing questions, etc. It is getting old. I went through the same thing in Mexico a few weeks back.

It's odd. There is something that we are not being told and I can't put my finger on it but these responses are a bit OTT for the so called, 'mild', swine flu.