Talks about spread of H1N1

Here about H1N1.

The World Health Organization has warned that the global A/H1N1 flu pandemic is still in its early stages. It says reports of over 100,000 infections in England alone last week are plausible.

The WHO's Assistant Director-General for Health Security and Environment said on Friday, given the size of the world's population, the A/H1-N1 flu is likely to spread for some time.

Dr. Keiji Fukuda, said, "What WHO has been reporting from the beginning is laboratory confirmed cases. And so we've always known that this is a smaller group of the total number of cases."

H1N1 cause cancellation of pilgrimage

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In Costa Rica, fears that swine flu might spread through the crowds of faithful walking to the Basilica de los Angeles in Cartago, the country’s Ministry of Health and Catholic Church agreed to suspend the annual pilgrimage.

Hundreds of thousands of people, some from outside the country, make the annual  August 2 pilgrimage to Cartago, the country's first capital. Authorities feared that up to 20,000 people could contract swine flu if the pilgrimage went ahead.

In Saudi Arabia and surrounding nations, the young, old and sick are banned from the hajj.

Health ministers from Arab states agreed to ban children, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses from participating in the hajj , an annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that attracts 3 million people every year to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

The ministers hope the ban, which applies to adults over the age of 65 and children under 12, will reduce the possibility of swine flu contagion during the hajj, which takes place in late November, following peak flu season. A 28-year-old Egyptian woman died from swine flu last week after returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca — the first such death from the swine flu virus in the Middle East.

The World Health Organization reports that deaths from swine flu worldwide have doubled in the past three weeks, from about 330 to over 700. Scientists are working on developing a vaccine before the flu season begins this fall in the northern hemisphere.

H1N1 flu cases

Here about H1N1 flu case.

A 7-year-old boy is the latest case of novel influenza H1N1 to be confirmed at Fort Gordon, the post announced Wednesday.

The boy was seen at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center on July 15, given anti-viral medication and sent home to recover, according to a news release. The boy is a child of a military member, but it was unclear where the child resides.

The child is the 18th case at the post this year, spokeswoman Marla Jones said. The fort has contingency plans to isolate sick personnel should the need arise, but those plans are not in effect, she said.

"We would have to have a large number of cases that the hospital couldn't handle," Ms. Jones said.

As with most of the military samples, the tests are being confirmed in the laboratory of the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio. Georgia, which is only testing severely ill and hospitalized patients suspected of having the new virus, has seen 178 confirmed cases as of last week, with one confirmed death.

South Carolina has had 228 lab-confirmed cases as of July 10, including 13 in Aiken County.

Talks about volunteers needed H1N1 vaccine trials

Above about H1N1 vaccine trials.

Healthy volunteers may help the rest of us stay that way if the H1N1 virus makes a comeback in the fall.

In August, Rochester Clinical Research in Irondequoit will begin testing vaccines against the so-called swine flu, and the company needs about 300 volunteers of all ages.

Six vaccines are being tested among more than a dozen sites across the country, and RCR will be testing four, according to Patricia Larrabee, president and chief executive officer. Should any or all of the vaccines prove effective against H1N1, they could be used during the upcoming flu season.

RCR is the only Monroe County site involved in testing vaccines.

The University of Rochester is not involved in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of H1N1 vaccines being developed. But if the vaccines are used during the flu season, UR researchers would track how well they do the job.

H1N1 has stayed in the news since emerging this spring and there is concern that it could re-emerge in the fall with a vengeance. Research to be published in the journal Nature reported that swine flu multiplies in the respiratory system with more severity than seasonal flu. The current H1N1 has been compared to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

Questions remain about how an H1N1 vaccine would be administered and which age groups would get priority. Traditionally, the elderly have been given precedence with vaccines against seasonal flu. But H1N1 has tended to be more troublesome for younger people. “Under 20 is where we’ve seen the bulk of the disease,” said Dr. Andrew Doniger, director of the Monroe County Health Department.

Public health officials also have to determine whether an H1N1 vaccine would be given at the same time as a seasonal flu vaccine. Other logistical issues, such as how the vaccine would be distributed, still need to be worked out.

But, as Doniger points out, fall — when flu vaccines start to be given — is coming. Usually it takes months for researchers to get to the stage of a clinical trial. For example, researchers have been working for two years on a vaccine for avian flu, Larrabee said.

But the quick start to this trial has researchers running a drill. RCR received word in June that it would run a clinical trial. Its first trial begins the first week of August. Another will start two weeks later and a third is scheduled for September.

Depending on the age group, Larrabee said that RCR needs as few as 10 people and as many as 160 for the trials. Worldwide, several thousand people will be needed.

RCR’s job is to make sure volunteers are eligible to participate, then administer the vaccine and prepare the volunteers’ blood to be analyzed.

In order to protect the integrity of the study, neither the researchers nor the volunteers will know who gets a placebo and who gets the vaccine.

11th death of H1N1 in New Zealand

Here about death of H1N1.

The number of deaths from Influenza A/H1N1 in New Zealand rose to 11 on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health said.

    The latest death was a child who had underlying medical conditions and died within the past week.

    There were a total of 2,443 confirmed cases of Influenza A/H1N1in New Zealand on Tuesday, up from 2,368 on Monday.

    But the actual number of confirmed cases will be significantly higher, as only a small proportion of people with symptoms are being tested.

    There are 74 people in hospital with influenza A/H1N1, 26 of whom are in intensive care. Half of those in intensive care are in hospitals in Auckland.

    The New Zealand government said Influenza A/H1N1 has not yet peaked and health services remain under pressure.

    The health authorities said they were prepared for a possible increase in flu cases which the Health Ministry said could happen as a result of children returning to school from holidays this week.

H1N1 cases hit Becker County

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After 10 children attending a Concordia Language camp at Maplelag were sent home on July 11 with suspected H1N1 infection, Becker County Human Services is concerned that when the virus hits a large population of Becker County, particularly during the school year, they may not have sufficient funds to handle the pandemic or distribute vaccines.

Four of the 10 children, who are from all around the country, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas and Virginia state, were tested and confirmed to have the H1N1 virus, also known as Swine Flu, said Becker County Community Health Supervisor Ronda Stock.

In addition, camp workers have likely also been affected, Stock said.

Although the spread of H1N1 has been so fast that it is now considered a pandemic, she stressed that the severity of the flu is not as bad as some people think – certainly not as bad as the famed 1918 Spanish flu that killed millions.

“It’s a flu, but for those of us that are reasonably healthy, we’re going to withstand this,” she said. “But we need to stay home and not spread it.”

Only four of the 10 children were tested for the virus, Stock said, because the policy right now is to mainly go with “symptomology,” and only test severe cases.

The main concern for the county at this point, she said, is the ramifications that come from a wide population being sick for seven to nine days – the recommended length of isolation if a person has H1N1.

“If you have three or two children that are school age, and they can’t go to school for seven days and two more days after they’re symptom free, that’s nine days of daycare you don’t have, that’s nine days of reimbursement for the schools,” she said. “The ramifications are quite huge, not to mention, if you talk high school age, how are those kids going to make requirements for graduation? It’s really quite huge. I don’t want to minimize the impact of this.”

At Tuesday’s joint city-county-school board-chamber meeting, Nancy Nelson, Becker County’s Human Services director, expressed concern that the county won’t be able to pay for an imminent pandemic.

“In unallotments, the money for this was slashed — we have no money,” she said. “In the event that there is a vaccine this fall, which is up in the air, we need the funds to give that. We have none. We have not even the supplies to give that, but also for the staff to do a large mass dispensive.”

Stock also said it was a “huge concern.”

“I have no funds for a pandemic,” she said. “I’ve got seven nurses for 30,000 people … I can only hope that if the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) does give me the antivirals, that they’ll give the stuff to do it with, the syringes, the gloves, the Band-Aids, all that has to come out of local public health dollars.”

Nelson said at the meeting that she was confident it would hit hard during the school year.

“That’s what we’re planning for. We do think it’s going to hit,” Nelson said. “To say it’s a possibility is not realistic, I think it’s going to happen. How hard it happens is the thing.”

Although these are the first confirmed cases, Stock said it’s likely there have been other people in the county that have had it and not been tested, which she said is fine for people that are in good health and can handle it.

Symptoms are similar to a seasonal flu, including headaches, sore throat, and a fever, but mostly very bad body aches.

“Where your skin, your eyelashes, your toenails absolutely ache, and you can’t do anything,” Stock said.

Since a vaccine hasn’t been developed yet, Stock said the best prevention measures are basic hygiene rules like washing your hands, coughing into your elbow, and staying home if you think you’re sick.

More H1N1 cases

Here are H1N1 cases.

Vietnam’s health ministry confirmed Friday seven more H1N1 cases, as the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the pandemic was spreading at “unprecedented” speed and stopped releasing figures on numbers affected.

The six new cases in the south and one in the north took the country’s tally to 345 cases. 

The Ministry of Health also reported an increase in infections recently among people entering Vietnam on road, apart from those arriving on flights. 

The Center for Preventive Health in Dong Nai Province on Friday reported 17 locals of Viet Kieu Hamlet in Xuan Loc District had tested positive to influenza A (H1N1) and were being treated under quarantine at the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the Xuan Loc General Hospital. 

The patients include 49-year-old Vu Duc Yen, an overseas Vietnamese from the US, his wife Chu Thi Sen and his son Vu Minh Tuan.

Fourteen other patients were identified to have had direct contact with Yen’s family. 

Yen’s family had arrived at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport on July 10 and two of their children had been quarantined as they had high temperatures. Subsequent tests found the two had contracted the H1N1 virus. 

Doctors of Xuan Loc General Hospital said they had quarantined seven others at Viet Kieu Hamlet for flu tests, after they recorded high body temperatures.

Twenty others were also encouraged to quarantine themselves at home to avoid the possible spread of the flu, which is also known as swine flu.

New push in H1N1 flu fight

Above about H1N1 flu fight.

U.S. health officials are preparing intensively to combat an anticipated wave of outbreaks of the new H1N1 flu when children return to school and the pace of cases picks up.

Identified by scientists just three months ago, the new swine-flu virus has reached nearly every country, spreading tenaciously with what the World Health Organization this week called "unprecedented speed." Rather than die down in the summer as some experts initially expected, it is continuing to proliferate even in countries like the U.S. and U.K. that are in the full bloom of summer, when the march of influenza normally slows down. It is also spreading rapidly in the Southern Hemisphere.

Anne Schuchat, chief of immunization and respiratory diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday that the agency expects an increase in cases before the normal start of the flu season in mid-autumn, because children are likely to spread it to one another once they go back to school. Infectious diseases normally spread readily among children, and this virus has hit children and young adults harder than the elderly, who normally suffer the heaviest toll from flu.

"We've seen it in camps and military units," Dr. Schuchat said. "I'm expecting when school reopens and kids are all back together, in some communities at least we may see an increase."

The number of confirmed U.S. infections is now 40,617, with 263 deaths, the CDC said Friday. But the agency believes that more than one million people have been infected and weren't tested for the virus or didn't visit a doctor. The disease has become so widespread that the agency will probably suspend tallying individual case counts within the next few weeks and focus instead on tracking clusters, severe cases, deaths and other unusual events -- a more traditional approach to tracking diseases, Dr. Schuchat said.

Second swine flu death reperted Indiana

Here’s about swine flu.

INDIANAPOLIS - State health officials say Indiana has had its second swine flu death.
The state Department of Health said Friday that a resident of Lake County in northern Indiana has died from complications related to the H1N1 influenza.
The agency won't release any other information about the resident for confidentiality reasons.
State health commissioner Judy Monroe says officials are working closely with Lake County health officials to investigate the case. She said her agency has already communicated with all close contacts and health care providers who might have been exposed in the fatal case.

A 19-year-old man from Dearborn County in the state's southeastern corner became Indiana's first swine flu death on July 5.

H1N1 spread so fast

 

Above about virus H1N1 spread too fast.

GENEVA, July 16 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday that the H1N1 flu pandemic was the fastest-moving pandemic ever and that it was now pointless to count every case.
The United Nations agency, which declared an influenza pandemic on June 11, revised its requirements so that national health authorities need only report clusters of severe cases or deaths caused by the new virus or unusual clinical patterns.
"The 2009 influenza pandemic has spread internationally with unprecedented speed. In past pandemics, influenza viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks," it said in a statement on the new strain, commonly known as swine flu.
It has become nearly impossible for health authorities and laboratories to keep count of individual cases -- which have mostly been mild -- as the virus spreads, according to the 193 member-state agency.
The new flu strain can be treated by antivirals such as Roche Holding's (ROG.VX) Tamiflu or GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK.L) Relenza, but many patients recover without medical treatment.
Flu experts say at least a million people are infected in the United States alone, and the WHO says the pandemic is unstoppable.
"It is very much agreed that trying to register and report every single case is a huge waste of resources," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said.
Such tracking has limited authorities' capacity to investigate serious cases and is no longer essential to monitor the level or nature of the risk posed by the virus, WHO said.
However, all countries should still closely monitor unusual clusters of severe or fatal infections from the pandemic virus, clusters of respiratory illness requiring hospitalisation or unexplained or unusual clinical patterns.
"Signals to be vigilant for include spikes in rates of absenteeism from schools or workplaces, or a more severe disease pattern, as suggested by, for example, a surge in emergency department visits," it said.
Britain reported on Thursday that 29 people had died to date after contracting the virus. Health Minister Andy Burnham said this month the government was projecting more than 100,000 new cases a day of the flu in the country by the end of August.
The WHO will no longer issue global tables showing the numbers of confirmed cases for all countries -- which stood at 94,512 cases with 429 deaths as of its last update on July 6.
Instead, it will issue regular updates on the situation in newly affected countries, which should report the first confirmed cases, weekly figures and epidemiological details.
Countries should still test a limited number of virus samples weekly to confirm that disease is actually due to the pandemic virus and to monitor any virological changes that may be important for the development of vaccines, it said.

10th death H1N1 in New Zealand

Here’s about H1N1 death.

WELLINGTON, July 16 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand on Thursday reported the 10th death case related to influenza A/H1N1.

    The Ministry of Health said in a press release that a man in his 40s in the North Island's eastern city of Gisborne, became the latest victim. He had serious underlying medical problems.

    The total number of confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 in New Zealand was 2,107 on Thursday, up from 2,025 on Wednesday.

    The Ministry of Health said it is important to note that the actual number of cases will be significantly higher, as only a small proportion of people with symptoms are being tested. They said that this is a mild illness and they will recover readily at home without needing medical treatment.

Rescue preparing for the H1N1

Above about rescue preparing for the virus H1N1.

Local paramedics need to be prepared for the H1N1 pandemic. With high profile cases, like the pregnant woman on life support, and in isolation at Wellington Regional Medical Center, health officials are looking for ways to prevent the spread of H1N1.

The Riviera Beach Fire Rescue Department is taking the lead on this by asking the Palm Beach County Health Department to help them get Tamiflu, the anti-viral medicine being used to treat H1N1, added to the stock of drugs on each ambulance.

That way, if first responders believe someone has the symptoms and could be a possible H1N1 case, they can give that person Tamiflu on site if they don't want to go to the hospital.

That's good for everyone because if sick people don't go to the ER, they are less likely to spread the virus.

Riviera Beach Fire Rescue also wants to have forms to fill out and send directly to the Health Department Epidemiologists to report suspected cases to the CDC.

Paramedics would be able to notify hospitals before a patient even arrives. Riviera Beach Fire Rescue is also working with other medical directors to make this standard for all Fire Rescue Departments.

They are waiting from approval from Tallahassee.

About Swine influenza

Above about Swine influenza.

Swine influenza (also called swine flu, hog flu and pig flu) is an infection of a host animal by any one of several specific types of swine influenza virus. In 2009 the media labeled as "swine flu" flu caused by 2009's new strain of swine-origin A/H1N1 pandemic virus just as it had earlier dubbed as "avian flu" flu caused by the recent Asian-linage HPAI (High Pathogenic Avian Influenza) H5N1 strain that is still endemic in many wild bird species in several countries.

A swine influenza virus (SIV) is any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is usually hosted by (is endemic in) pigs.^[2] As of 2009, the known SIV strains are the influenza C virus and the subtypes of the influenza A virus known as H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3. Swine flu is common throughout pig populations worldwide.

Transmission of swine influenza virus from pigs to humans is not common and does not always cause human influenza, often only resulting in the production of antibodies in the blood. The meat of the animal poses no risk of transmitting the virus when properly cooked. If transmission does cause human influenza, it is called zoonotic swine flu. People who work with pigs, especially people with intense exposures, are at increased risk of catching swine flu. In the mid-20th century, identification of influenza subtypes became possible, which allows accurate diagnosis of transmission to humans. Since then, fifty confirmed transmissions have been recorded. Rarely, these strains of swine flu can pass from human to human. In humans, the symptoms of swine flu are similar to those of influenza and of influenza-like illness in general, namely chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort. Pigs can also become infected with human influenza, and this appears to have happened during the 1918 flu pandemic.^[3]

The 2009 swine flu outbreak in humans is due to a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 that contains genes closely related to swine influenza.^[4] The origin of this new strain is unknown. However, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reports that this strain has not been isolated in pigs.^[5] This strain can be transmitted from human to human,^[6] and causes the normal symptoms of influenza.

Definition Influenza A cases

Here's about Influenza A H1N1 cases.

Suspect Case

Defined as an individual with an acute febrile respiratory illness (fever >38°C) with onset of symptoms:

• Within 7 days of travel to affected areas; or
• Within 7 days of close contact with a confirmed or probable case of Influenza A (H1N1)

Probable Case

Defined as an individual with an acute febrile respiratory illness (fever >38°C) with an influenza test that is positive for Influenza A but is un-subtypeable by reagents used to detect seasonal influenza virus infection, OR;

An individual with a clinically compatible illness or who died of an unexplained acute respiratory illness who is considered to be epidemiologically linked to a probable or a confirmed case.

Confirmed Case

Defined as an individual with laboratory confirmed Influenza A (H1N1) virus infection by one or more of the following tests:

• Real-time RT-PCR;
• Viral culture;
• Four-fold rise in Influenza A (H1N1) virus specific neutralising antibodies.

The Spanish Flu

Here's about the Spanish Flu cause by the H1N1.

The Spanish Flu, also known as La Grippe, or La Pesadilla, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of avian influenza, a viral infectious disease, that killed some 50 million to 100 million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1919. It is thought to have been one of the most deadly pandemics so far in human history. It was caused by the H1N1 type of influenza virus, which is similar to bird flu of today, mainly H5N1 and H5N2.

The Spanish flu caused an unusual number of deaths because it, like H5N1, caused a cytokine storm in the body. The virus infected lung cells, leading to overstimulation of the immune system via release of cytokine bursts into the lung tissue. This leads to extensive leukocyte migration towards the lungs, causing destruction of lung tissue and secretion of liquid into the lung, and making it difficult for the patient to breathe. Due to the nature of the infection, people with a normal healthy immune system were more susceptible to the disease, such as young adults compared to young children and the elderly.

Definition of H1N1

Here's about virus H1N1.

H1N1 is a subtype of the species Influenza A virus. H1N1 has mutated into various strains including the Spanish Flu strain (now extinct in the wild), mild human flu strains, endemic pig strains, and various strains found in birds.

A variant of H1N1 was responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 50 million to 100 million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1919 ^[1]. A different variant exists in pig populations. Controversy arose in October 2005, after the H1N1 genome was published in the journal Science. Many fear that this information could be used for bioterrorism.

"When he compared the 1918 virus with today's human flu viruses, Dr. Taubenberger noticed that it had alterations in just 25 to 30 of the virus's 4,400 amino acids. Those few changes turned a bird virus into a killer that could spread from person to person." ^[2]

Low pathogenic H1N1 strains still exist in the wild today, causing roughly half of all flu infections in 2006.