Teach Cough Hygiene Everywhere

Please see the WikiBook here and join and support the cause here!

The 1918 flu pandemic killed more people than WWI. There is a current (2012) new swine flu in India which could become a world wide issue next winter (2013).

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE
A recommended lecture by Dr. Larry Brilliant in 2007 is still highly relevant.

Another longish lecture may be found here.

OVERVIEW OF COURSE
This resource is designed to support a worldwide campaign to "train the trainers" - people who work as volunteers or professionals interacting with vulnerable populations such as refugees, the homeless, detainees and people living in conditions of poverty.

Remember it is not a matter of if but when another global pandemic will strike!



RECOMMENDED READING
FLU Gina Kolata From Publishers Weekly: "It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease combined." Between 20 million and 100 million people worldwide died in the 1918 flu pandemic, but for years afterward this deadliest plague in history was almost completely forgotten. Histories and even medical texts rarely mentioned it. This disconnect between the flu's devastation and its obscurity is the starting point for Kolata's incisive history. She explains how the plague spread, covers the various speculations about its causes and origins and gives an account of the search to retrieve a specimen of the virus strain once genetic science had advanced enough to unravel the virus's mysteries. Tissue samplesAfrom an obese woman buried in the permafrost of Alaska and from two soldiers who died in army campsApreserved by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in thumb-sized bits of paraffin prove to be the last remaining sources of the 1918 strain. Kolata, a science writer for the New York Times and author of Clone, profiles the scientists who tracked down these samples, follows their investigations and explains their conclusions. Could such a deadly flu appear again? Many scientists fear it could, hence their quick response to the 1997 outbreak of chicken flu in Hong Kong, which led to the slaughter of 1.2 million birds and, Kolata argues, averted another worldwide disaster. Clearly explaining both the science and the social toll of the pandemic, Kolata writes an admirable history and soberly spells out how the U.S. government is preparedAor unpreparedAfor a similar public health threat today. (Nov.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title SOURCE: http://www.amazon.com/Flu-Influenza-Pandemic-Search-Caused/dp/0743203984

WIKIBOOK
Please see the WikiBook here!

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 A. What you need to know about viruses

Chapter 2 B. Pathogenic bacteria

Chapter 3 Basic information on infectious disease

Chapter 4 Basic information on epidemics

Chapter 6 Swine flu basics

Chapter 7 Cough Hygiene

Appendix Resources

VIDEO RESOURCES
"What You Need to Know"

Google up the trailer to CONTAGION and rent it from Redbox.

OUTBREAK Official Trailer Dustin Hoffmann stars in this 1995 classic.Portions may still be visible online but highly segmented; best to rent it at Redbox. Class discussion question: how much of this could be real?

VIRUS full movie online, free. 1980. Surviving scientists seek cure for epidemic. Doomsday scenario certainly overblown - it mixes nuclear holocaust - but surprisingly realist for 1980. Class discussion question: how much of this could be real?

CONTACT INSTRUCTOR
Post questions in the discussion page or the talk page here or at wikibooks of Geof Bard.