- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
Don't fall victim to fake news about the coronavirus 1:34
(CNN Spanish) - A little over 10 years ago, images of crowds with masks went around the world in the middle of an alert sent by the World Health Organization of an influenza pandemic for the dreaded swine flu or H1N1.
The images at the time were similar to those seen today with the Wuhan coronavirus, which has made thousands of people worldwide sick and is inspiring countries to close their borders and Americans in some parts of the United States to Buy surgical masks faster than major retailers can replenish them.
For the latter, WHO declared a public health emergency at the end of January 2020.
- The World Health Organization declares the coronavirus an international public health emergency
- Look: Recommendations to prevent the spread of coronavirus
But back to 2009, the news of a pandemic paralyzed the world, but especially the US. and Mexico, where the first cases of infected with the H1N1 virus were recorded.
The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, is a respiratory disease caused by the influenza A virus in pigs. Swine flu outbreaks are common in pig herds, but in general the disease causes few deaths in these animals.
Symptoms of this virus in humans are similar to those of normal human flu and may include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite, cough, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Students enter a school in Mexico City in May 2009, when at least 2,000 cases of swine flu had been confirmed. (Credit: ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP via Getty Images)
The first cases
Although the H1N1 virus was first discovered in 1930, and in the 70s and 80s some cases were recorded, it was not until 2009 that the pandemic began that, according to a 2012 study, killed worldwide between 151,700 and 575,400 people.
The first case in the US It was discovered in April 2009, when swine flu was detected in a 10-year-old boy. CDC laboratory tests confirmed the same virus in a second California child residing about 200 kilometers from the first patient.
On April 24, the CDC issued an outbreak notice, warning travelers about an increased health risk of swine flu in central Mexico and Mexico City. Two days later, on April 26, 2009, the United States declared a public health emergency as cases of swine flu increase.
By then, WHO was already raising the alerts and on April 29, it raised the influenza pandemic alert to a level 5, indicating that there were sustained outbreaks at the community level in two or more countries in the same region. The number of infected by this virus was already out of control, and on June 11, 2009, WHO raised the influenza pandemic alert to a level 6. The outbreak was considered a global pandemic.
- Chronology of the coronavirus: thus began and spread the virus that puts the world on alert
The Mexico case
The name of Édgar Hernández, a 5-year-old boy, went around the world in 2009.
Edgar Hernández, along with his mother, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN in an interview in Mexico in 2009.
Edgar and his family lived in La Gloria, a town of 3,000 inhabitants in the state of Veracruz, located on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Doctors identified Édgar as the first documented case of swine flu in the outbreak that emerged in 2009. Édgar survived the disease that, according to his mother, was transmitted to him by a pig from a neighboring farm.
When the pandemic was officially declared by the world health authorities, the government of then President Felipe Calderón ordered a series of actions such as the suspension of classes throughout the country, as well as the cancellation of activities on public sites and dissemination of prevention information .
Meanwhile, in the Federal District - as it was called before Mexico City - the head of Government Marcelo Ebrad asked people to stay at home and with a decree, the closure of the food establishments was ordered, except for home services.
- Can you get the coronavirus from your shipments from China? There is no proof of that.
- Look: This is how Mexico expects the possible arrival of the coronavirus
The number of dead and infected
The numbers were conservative at first. WHO reported that in the first 16 months of the pandemic, 18,500 deaths were recorded due to this disease.
On August 10, 2010, the Director-General of WHO, Margaret Chan, announced that the H1N1 pandemic had moved to a post-pandemic period. But two years later, in a study published in 2012 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, it was established that this pandemic could have claimed the lives of between 151,700 to 575,400 people worldwide.
The reason is that, according to the researchers, during 2009, many countries affected by the pandemic, especially in Africa and Southeast Asia, lacked the ability to perform routine laboratory tests and therefore had difficulty identifying deaths related to H1N1 flu.
Between April 12, 2009 and April 10, 2010, it is estimated that there were approximately 60.8 million cases in the United States alone, 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths, according to the CDC.
In October 2009, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, declared that the outbreak of H1N1 was a national emergency.
In Mexico, until July 2010, 72,548 cases and 1,316 deaths were confirmed, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.
The figure could be larger, because "according to WHO estimates, it is possible that between a quarter and half of the country's population has been infected during the pandemic outbreak," says the report of the Mexican authorities.
Mexico City, April 24, 2009. (Credit: Ronaldo Schemidt / AFP via Getty Images)
How it compares to the current coronavirus
While it is premature to compare the figures of the Wuhan coronavirus with other pandemics or epidemics, in just one month the Wuhan coronavirus, whose first cases were reported on December 31, 2019, has claimed the lives of at least 213 people and has Registered 9,700 cases throughout mainland China, although it is believed that there is a sub-registration of cases.
In at least four weeks the virus has spread to 20 places outside this country.
Regarding how it compares to other pandemics, the H1N1 flu, for example, killed more than 570,000 people in 16 months of virus spread.
In the US, on the other hand, influenza has infected 19 million Americans across the country and killed at least 10,000 people this season alone and 2019-2020 is expected to be one of the worst in a decade, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At least 180,000 people have been hospitalized with influenza complications, and that number is expected to increase as disease activity increases.
And not to mention the pandemics of the last century.
Only in the twentieth century, the world experienced severe influenza pandemics. The Spanish flu of 1918 was an unprecedented catastrophe. The best estimates of the experts (before there was a more formal census and record keeping) were that 20% to 40% of the world got sick and more than 50 million people died.
In the United States alone, approximately 675,000 people died in just the eight months between September 1918 and April 1919. Some people died the same day they became ill, and others died within a few days from flu complications, such as pneumonia or meningitis.
Forty years later, the Asian flu of 1958 and 1959 had a global death toll of up to 2 million and an estimated 70,000 of them in the United States alone.
In early 1968, the Hong Kong flu began. In September, it made its way around the world, including the United States, and became widespread in December. It is believed that the number of infected reached its peak during the fall, when the children were in school, transmitting the virus with greater freedom. There, up to one million people died, 34,000 in the United States alone between September 1968 and March 1969.
AH1N1 coronavirus