Influenza A(H1N1) - update 33

As of 06:00 GMT, 19 May 2009, 40 countries have officially reported 9830 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection, including 79 deaths.

It's sad that 79 people have died because of this flu. Do you know that during a normal flu season and average of 36,000 people die from flu related causes and that 200,000 people are usually hospitalized.


That is why I think the media put to much hype on this situation. You never hear about the regular flu season, unless they are talking about the flu vaccination.

Flu pandemic alert raised to highest level

(CNN) — The World Health Organization raised the flu alert Thursday to its highest level, saying H1N1 has spread to enough countries to be considered a global pandemic.

Increasing the alert to Level 6 does not mean that the disease is deadlier or more dangerous, just that it has spread to more countries, the WHO said.

As of Wednesday evening, the virus, also known as swine flu, had spread to 72 countries, the health agency said. There were 25,288 confirmed cases and 139 deaths. The United States had 13,217 cases and 27 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday of last week.

Another update from WHO:

CNN - The World Health Organization raised the swine flu alert Thursday to its highest level, saying the H1N1 virus has spread to enough countries to be considered a global pandemic.

Increasing the alert to Phase 6 does not mean that the disease is deadlier or more dangerous than before, just that it has spread to more countries, the WHO said.

"This is an important and challenging day for all of us," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a briefing with reporters. "We are moving into the early days of the first flu pandemic of the 21st century."

The last previous pandemic occurred in 1968.

As of Thursday, the virus had spread to 74 countries, the health agency said. There were 28,774 confirmed cases and 144 deaths.

The United States had 13,217 cases and 27 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said June 5 in its weekly update. Cases have been reported in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The U.S. death toll is expected be higher when the CDC releases its latest figures Friday, said Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

New England -- particularly Massachusetts -- and the New York and New Jersey areas have been hit the hardest, Schuchat said Thursday at a CDC news conference.

The Phase 6 pandemic designation had been widely expected for weeks.

"Further spread is considered inevitable," Chan said at a news conference at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. "The scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met."

The announcement came after a meeting of the WHO's Emergency Committee, which has debated since April whether the spread of a novel H1N1 flu virus was fast and widespread enough to warrant a Phase 6 designation.

Phase 6, Chan said, is meant as a signal to countries to recalibrate their strategies to minimize the harm from swine flu. In countries where the virus and the response to it are already widespread, it is not likely to mean significant changes, but Chan urged countries that have not seen cases, or seen only limited cases, to get ready.

"The virus is not stoppable," she said. "I would advise them to maintain vigilance, enhance surveillance and be prepared for the arrival of the novel H1N1 in their country."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security said those agencies have been acting for weeks as if Phase 6 were already in effect and no additional measures would be put into effect.

The United States declared a public health emergency April 26.

"WHO continues to recommend no restriction on travel and on border closures," Chan said.

Discussions about shifting to Phase 6 have been under way for weeks. Chan indicated that a major factor in the decision was surveillance from countries in the Southern Hemisphere, where flu season is under way. In Chile and Australia, two countries with many flu cases, she said H1N1 appears to be the dominant strain, "crowding out" the seasonal influenza virus.

Chan said she would recommend that vaccine manufacturers proceed with mass production of an inoculation against the new swine flu strain as soon as they finish production of seasonal vaccine, which she estimated would be complete in about two weeks.

HHS spokesman Bill Hall said Thursday that no decision has been made on full-scale production because there is no need yet to make that decision.

It is a step-by-step process that is moving forward. "We're doing as much as we can now," he said.

The agency awarded a contract several weeks ago to five manufacturers to develop an H1N1 antigen. The companies are producing pilot lots. Clinical testing will take place over the summer, Hall said.

At the end of the summer, HHS will decide whether to go into production.

"There's no specific date on the calendar," Hall said.

If officials decide to produce a vaccine, the first doses would be ready early in the fall. Hall noted that even full-scale production doesn't mean there will be an immunization campaign. Federal officials may have a vaccine and decide not to use it, he said.

Also Thursday, authorities in Hong Kong ordered the closure of all elementary schools, kindergartens and day care centers in the city after 12 students were found to be infected with the virus.

Authorities have not determined the source of the infection, said Hong Kong's Chief Executive Donald Tsang. This makes it the first cluster of swine flu cases in the city without a link to someone who had traveled overseas.

The schools and day care centers were told to close for 14 days as investigators tried to identify the source of the infection, said Tsang, the chief executive.

The health department will decide after two weeks whether to continue the shutdown.
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Also on Thursday, Israel's health ministry announced that the number of people diagnosed with swine flu there was 68.

Health officials use the virus' clinical name -- H1N1 -- to reflect that it's actually a combination of several different types of flu and to reduce confusion about whether eating pork can spread the virus. It cannot.

Not sure if this is true, false, or somewhere in-between ... but someone was telling me that the Health and Human Services Department is getting more than a little nervous about the slow progress of H1N1 booster production both here and abroad. Apparently, the vaccine development time is a much longer process than previous innoculations, and they are getting worried that supplies may be insufficient when needed this fall.

We were very fortunate last year that bird-flu did not live up to expectations, but we not be as lucky if the H1N1 virus manages to mutate ... could be very hard on the young and elderly alike.

With little ones running around I get nervous about any kind of flu pandemic, especially with my children being of school age which only makes them more susceptible. The news about the vaccines is not promising.

Merged your post with the existing thread on H1N1...Thanks for the update about the vaccines...Scary news...

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

Thanks for the merge. Don't know how I missed the topic .
I haven't been able to confirm the rumor, so I'm hoping it is false information.

Here's the latest from CNN.com

Report: Swine flu could cause up to 90,000 U.S. deaths

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The H1N1 flu virus could cause up to 90,000 U.S. deaths, mainly among children and young adults, if it resurges this fall as expected, according to a report released Monday by a presidential advisory panel.

The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu virus, could infect between 30 percent and 50 percent of the American population during the fall and winter and lead to as many as 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported.

The report says 30,000 to 90,000 deaths are projected as part of a "plausible scenario" involving large outbreaks at schools, inadequate antiviral supplies and the virus peaking before vaccinations have time to be effective.
Up to 40,000 U.S. deaths are linked to seasonal flu each year, with most of the fatalities occurring among people over 65. With seasonal flu and H1N1, this fall is expected to bring more influenza deaths and place "enormous stress" on intensive care units nationwide, which normally operate near capacity, the report says.

An H1N1 resurgence may happen as early as September, at the beginning of the school year, and infections may peak in mid-October, according to the report. However, the H1N1 vaccine isn't expected to be available until mid-October, and even then it will take several weeks for vaccinated individuals to develop immunity, the report says.

The potential "mismatch in timing" could significantly diminish the usefulness of the H1N1 vaccine, the report says.
"Even with the best efforts, this will cause some illness, some severe illness and unfortunately, some deaths," Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday.

"But a lot so far has gone remarkably right," Frieden said. "There's a vaccine well on its way to being distributed, diagnostic tests available in well over 100 laboratories, treatments pre-positioned around the country ... and guidance issued for health care providers, schools, businesses and other communities."

Among the report's recommendations are for government agencies to:
• Prepare several "planning scenarios" to determine demand for supplies and care.
• Set up surveillance systems to track information about influenza-like illnesses.
• Develop plans to protect the public's most vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
• Speed up the production of the H1N1 vaccine and have an initial batch -- enough to vaccinate up to 40 million people, especially those who are at risk of serious disease -- by mid-September.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the government's preparation and guidance for the public was based on the need to strike a balance "on a continuum of being paralyzed with fear versus complacency."

So far, clinical trials for the H1N1 vaccine have not indicated adverse side effects beyond what are experienced with the seasonal flu vaccine, Sebelius said.

However, there would be no formal decision to launch a vaccination campaign until those trials were complete, she said. That decision would be hers, she said, and she emphasized that any vaccination program would be strictly voluntary.
Pregnant women, health care workers and parents or guardians of infants under 6 months of age are among the most vulnerable segments of the population, Sebelius has said.

Adults under the age of 65 with an underlying health condition -- such as asthma -- are also considered to be more at risk from the H1N1 virus.

H1N1 preparation guidelines for the nation's businesses and school systems were released three weeks ago. The plans are available at the Web site www.flu.gov.

The H1N1 vaccine would require two shots, the second three weeks after the first. Immunity to the virus would not kick in until two weeks after the second shot.

The World Health Organization declared the H1N1 virus a global pandemic on June 11. More than 1,490 people around the world have died from the virus since it emerged this spring, a WHO official said last week.

Thanks for the update ... that's not a real comfortable situation.
Possible H1N1 resurgence in September, no vaccine available until mid-October (if all goes well), and then 5+ weeks for the shots to be effective ... maybe.
Looks like we're a little behind the eight-ball on this one. Hope not.