News Log #4

Woman, 39, Was First to Die in Outbreak

www.new.aol.com/article/first-flu-death/454895

By Olga R. Rodriguez

39-year-old Adela Maria Gutierrez was the first person to die in the swine-flu outbreak in Oaxaca, Mexico. When she was rushed to the hospital with blue feet and hands (because of oxygen-starved blood), and gasping for air, doctors couldn't imagine what was wrong. The doctors tried to help in every way they could but Gutierrez just progressively got worse. The antibiotics distributed to her caused her to become more ill, and the ventilator that they later hooked her onto didn't help either. She was moved to an intensive care unit and a saliva sample was sent to a local private lab. The test results indicated it might be coronavirus — a highly contagious disease associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. A few days after the tests came back, she unfortunately died. Medical teams then did intensive studies and found that the cause of her death and sickness was a mutated swine flu. 

I think it's a shame that Gutierrez passed away. As I read more and more into the swine flu, I hear of more cases every day. At first, I thought that it was just an ordinary flu that people were getting out of season. But now that I'm hearing of all of these deaths that are occurring due to the disease, I'm convinced that it's a lot more serious. I'm actually very scared of the swine flu because I have a very weak immune system and I'm constantly catching every little thing that comes along. I really, REALLY hope that I don't get sick at all. I also hope that nobody in our district gets the swine flu either. I just hope as time goes on things only get better and not increasingly worse.