Bloomberg
April 24, 2009
Disease trackers are trying to determine whether a previously unseen strain of influenza in the U.S. is related to more than 130 cases of severe respiratory illness in Mexico and may spark a pandemic.
Scientists in both countries and Canada are studying the illnesses to determine whether they pose a larger public health threat. A pandemic can start when a novel influenza type-A virus, including swine flu, begins spreading, since no one has a natural immunity. The so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people, experts said.
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