Influenza Pandemic Emergency Plan 
Information about the A/H1N1-Virus
Symptoms and danger of infection
Pandemic emergency plan
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Symptoms and danger of infection
Symptoms
An infection can already exist after 24 hours even before the first noticeable symptoms occur. Adults are generally 5 days, children 7 days contagious after disease outbreak. Therefore pay attention to the following symptoms:
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sudden outbreak of the disease
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high fever over 38.5 degrees Celsius
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difficulty in breathing
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dry cough
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shivering
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muscle pain, joint pain, headache
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in some cases even Diarrhea and vomiting
Infection
The virus can be transmitted through very small droplets of saliva. When an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs, millions of microscopically small droplets are travelling through the air and even the smallest drop is enough to infect other people. A large crowd of people poses a very high risk of infection e.g. major events, stadiums, cinemas, public transports, market places, department stores and so on.
But the virus is also transmitted by the smear infection, i.e. a transmission through contaminated surfaces such as work station, objects or through handshakes. There it can survive for quite some time. So if you shake someone’s hand, touch bottles or objects and then unconsciously touch your face, the virus mostly succeeded.
The H1N1 virus needs a host to survive (human or animal) and affects primarily the respiratory tract. It settles down in a host cell and in there produces up to 100,000 new influenza viruses. If that host cell dies those viruses are set free, settle down in other cells or find a new host. Since every time hundreds of thousands new viruses are produced, the rapidly increasing transmission shouldn't be a surprise anymore.
The A/H1N1 virus is very resistant - at a temperature of 20 degree Celsius it can survive up to 8 hours, at a water temperature of up to 30 degree Celsius it can survive up to 4 days, at 60 degree Celsius it dies after 30 minutes and not until 70 degrees the virus permanently dies. Under the ice it can survive endlessly!!