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Are bird flu, swine flu, mexican flu, dutch flu, spanish flu, hongkongflu, Sars...not all the same thing ?

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  • BJC
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Bird flu, swine flu, 'mexican flu', 'spanish flu', 'hongkong flu' are strains of influenza A viruses which causes the flu (respiratory infection) and can also cause pandemic influenza (if they become easy to spread from human to human). The common winter flu that most people have experienced is often influenza B.....because influenza A viruses are so rare when they jump from animals (birds/pigs/waterfowl) to humans and then from human to human...our immune systems can become overwhelmed. Our immune systems often have no memory of influenza A type flus (unlike our annual exposure to strains of Influenza B) and therefore the mortality rate of pandemic flu is often dramatically higher.

    SARS is a coronavirus which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome which is similar to the 'flu', but much more serious. The mortality rate is higher (under 60 = 13%, over 60 =43%), and the progression of SARS disease becomes distinct from influenza and also usually lasts much longer. For those who survive the hospitalization usually lasts about 3 weeks.

    Source(s): background in microbiology and immunology
  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    The swine flu is a sickness that has adapted fusing the poultry flue and the straightforward flu. So it now would nicely be unfold with the aid of birds, people and pigs and can kill off all 3 of them.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    there all diffrent the deadliest is the bird flu then sars and sars isnt the flu

  • 1 decade ago

    You can not have resistance against complete new flue viruses, that is when they are given new names. Mostly from the place they come from. Bird flue and Swine flue are not real names.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    LOL... same thing different face. They are all viruses which cause you to have flu.

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