certain influenza viruses can kill thousands if not millions of people

A new strain of the swine flu H1N1 virus has been identified by scientists in Singapore and they are concerned that it could mutate into a far more dangerous form. They said that at present it was slightly resistant to the influenza medications Tamiflu and Relenza but that a proper course of the drugs would deal with it completely.
 
The Singapore Ministry of Health confirmed that one patient had died from this new strain and that around ten percent of new cases tended to have the new mutation. It was also reported that the new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus and the old strain had mixed up together in the one patient who died.

This tracking of new flu viruses is considered to be extremely important and necessary if the world is to deal with future drug resistant influenza viruses. The World Health Organization has done its best to coordinate efforts from different countries to share influenza samples so that any slight mutations can be identified and vaccines and medications developed accordingly.

Many people believe that influenza is nothing more than an annoying inconvenience as opposed to a deadly disease and in the vast majority of cases they are right, but these same people need to do a little bit of historical research which will show them that certain influenza viruses can kill thousands if not millions of people.

The most famous influenza pandemic of the last hundred years was the Spanish flu which led to the death of millions of people worldwide. More recently, 50 years ago other influenza viruses killed tens of thousands of people before vaccines were developed and humanity learned to develop a national resistance to it.

The influenza medications Tamiflu and Relenza can drastically improve your chances of living if you contract the very deadly H5N1 bird flu virus and also prevent serious health complications should you get the H1N1 influenza virus.