Dimitri's post is horribly ignorant.
It's actually a more dangerous version of the flu that spreads at pandemic levels. It's more persistent and it travels deeper into the lungs, causing more potential damage. More people die of the regular flu - for now - because it's been around longer, and regular flu favors people with weak immune systems. H1N1 is totally capable of hospitalizing an otherwise perfectly healthy person.
What the WHO are worried about isn't the fact that it's just a really scary flu (although that's certainly cause for concern, as flu pandemics have killed millions in the past), it's the fact that this virus mutates so unbelievably fast. It could become extremely fatal. It doesn't take much of a stretch for something that changes so fast to rapidly become an uncontrollable problem.
EDIT: Thanks, Josh.
It's actually a more dangerous version of the flu that spreads at pandemic levels. It's more persistent and it travels deeper into the lungs, causing more potential damage. More people die of the regular flu - for now - because it's been around longer, and regular flu favors people with weak immune systems. H1N1 is totally capable of hospitalizing an otherwise perfectly healthy person.
What the WHO are worried about isn't the fact that it's just a really scary flu (although that's certainly cause for concern, as flu pandemics have killed millions in the past), it's the fact that this virus mutates so unbelievably fast. It could become extremely fatal. It doesn't take much of a stretch for something that changes so fast to rapidly become an uncontrollable problem.
EDIT: Thanks, Josh.
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