3 Common Myths About the Swine Flu

Myth: Swine flu is a disease that will kill anyone who gets it. That’s what pandemic means.

Truth: Swine flu is actually just a particularly nasty strain of flu. But it’s a flu just the same. Swine flu has the same symptoms as a regular flu, and is treated and spread like a regular flu. This means that you can take medicines that help with normal flu and they will help with swine flu. However, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has advised to avoid aspirin, as it can cause a serious illness when combined with swine flu.

Further, this new strain of the flu doesn’t kill everyone who gets it. There have been 11,054 confirmed cases in the United States. Out of all of those cases, there have been 17 deaths. The word pandemic actually only describes the number of cases and how wide a disease spreads in a short time. Even if there were no deaths whatsoever, the current flu could almost be a pandemic simply because it has spread quickly and to many different countries.