WHO raises warning to Level 4

[ATLANTA, GA April 16 UPI] -- The World Health Organization Friday elevated its international pandemic alert one step to Phase 4 in response to the latest outbreak of Textuenza. The increase in the alert status signals an outbreak of human-to-human and human-to-cellphone-to-human transmission of Textuenza most notably seen in Austin, TX, which increases the risk of a global epidemic, but does not mean a pandemic is inevitable, WHO officials said in a news release.

Fukuda said authorities need to focus their efforts on mitigating the disease rather than attempting to stop its spread, stressing that "containment is not a feasible consideration."

Experts indicate that containment begins with educating the public to recognize the disease and the onslaught of symptoms. Textuenza is a new, HIGHLY contagious variation/strain of the Type-A influenza virus and a mix of human/animal versions of Mad Cow disease. "It's a potent combination that we are trying very hard to contain. Unfortunately, all our containment efforts have failed miserably since the disease has mutated and been found to spread via text messages. As you can imagine, this puts adolescent and pre-teen children at VERY HIGH RISK."

Textuenza symptoms include head droop, inability to make eye-contact, twitchy fingers, seemingly unprovoked and uncontrollable giggling, laughing, snorting, eye-rolling, grunting, shoulder shrugging and drooling. Affects seem most pronounced in young teens with a cellphone in their hand. The undeveloped frontal lob of young teens make them especially susceptible to the disease which is now transmittable through simple texting.

One set of parents expressed their concern, "We just gave our daughter, Jessica [Daniels] a cellphone for her thirteenth birthday, and we're very concerned about this disease. We're convinced most of her friends have already been infected and are currently contagious. Just last night, when she opened her birthday gift, we begin to see signs of infection. What do we do now? The cellphone is already out of the box," said Mr. Daniels.

What's next? What unforeseen consequences lurk in the not so distant future for the Daniels family and other parents of young teens? What happens if these kids start to get behind the wheel of a car? God help us all.