SHOOT: Have a good look at this image. Notice anything a bit strange? Notice a gray area that doesn't make much sense? Take a closer look... Darkest are infections of 500 and over, lightest are under 10, and gray is no information. Almost the ENTIRE African region is gray. Notice too that China and the ENTIRE Americas are dark, and Australia, and New Zeland, indicating that the Southern Hemisphere ought to be feeling it...except for the aberration in the middle. Think the stats from South Africa are accurate? Think if South Africa is fudging its crime stats that it can even begin to provide data on something more complicated, more sophisticated, more tricky?
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No, not fudging. Well not totally at least.
ReplyDeleteIts quite simple really. Its extremely difficult to monitor anything in Africa due to lack of infrastructure, proper facilities, trained scientists, sample taking and transport etc. etc.
I can also assure you that in SA the network of Dr's participating in the Influenza program is very conscientious and has been so for years.
The testing facilities are good and staff are well trained. There is a surge of cases in SA at the moment and a lot of African Governments are having meetings with the CDC, WHO and others to get organized.
Its just a very difficult region to service. There are so many health, hunger , war , crime and other problems that is making it extremely difficult at the moment to pick up H1N1 on top of it all.
Africa will also have much more deaths from a H1N1 infection as the virus seems to cause death in those with underlying illnesses, a common trait in Africa.
Over $1 billion will be spent by world organisations this year on H1N1 issues alone.
The Western countries are focusing on Africa now as its an extremely worrying situation and African scientists, Dr's and governments are collaborating as best as circumstances allow.
The main worry is that somewhere in Africa the virus has mutated/re-assorted to a more deadly strain yet undetected and of course the impact of the current strain.
Okay, but the bottom line is we're not getting accurate information.
ReplyDelete"Gray indicates that a country does not have any confirmed cases"
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't say anything about not enough information.
You cannot say that they don't have enough information. Take a look at the "fringes" of Africa, there are very few cases, even in the countries which would have more infrastructure, like Egypt etc.
Maybe it just hasn't hit the centre of Africa yet.
Some areas just don't report it. I'm surprised Russia and China report anything.
ReplyDeleteTry this map, just give it time to load. There are two pages on the left.
http://swinemap.org/