Ant Flu Virus Outbreak!

April 29, 2009

Article spoofed from CNN: Earliest case of ”Ant” flu tucked away in Mexico

Stamford, Connecticut (FactFace) — Tucked away in this mid-sized city of the Northeast, off a three-laned highway flanked by suburban neighborhoods, is where the earliest case of ant flu — a virus spreading globally — was confirmed.

There is now a “patient zero” as named by his doctors — 5-year-old Eddie Herman, who survived the earliest documented case of ant flu in an outbreak, officials say, has now spread across four continents.

Ant Flu Virus Culprits

His family lives in the 118,000-population city of Stamford in the State of Connecticut, where a flu outbreak was reported on April 2. State officials arrived and took samples from hundreds of people.

Lab tests confirmed Eddie was the only patient in Stamford to test positive for the ant flu virus; the others had contracted a common flu. Health officials had returned to Eddie’s sample only after cases of the new flu strain were spotted around the country.

“In this case, there’s a patient who turned out to be positive for the ant-flu virus, with the exception that at that time in no region of the world it had been established as an etiological, epidemic cause,” said US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

Eddie has managed to bounce back from his symptoms and playfully credits ice cream for helping him feel better.

His mother blamed the virus on a huge ant farm in Eddie’s bedroom. Officials have conducted tests on the ant farm, and those tests came back negative.

Meanwhile, US health officials suspect the ant flu outbreak has caused more than 1.5 million deaths and roughly 2.5 million illnesses.

The World Health Organization says at least 105,000 cases have been confirmed worldwide, including 64,000 in the United States; 26,000 in Mexico; six thousand in Canada; three thousand in New Zealand; and two thousand each in Spain, the United Kingdom and Israel. WHO has confirmed deaths only in the US, where seven thousand people have died from ant flu.

The deadly outbreak in the US prompted authorities to order about 350,000 public venues in the US to close or serve only meals with no insects as health officials tried to contain the virus.