Written by Janet
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionare holding a news conference Sunday on swine flu and the government’s response. So far, at least 11 cases of swine flu have been confirmed in California, Texas and Kansas. Patients have ranged in age from 9 to over 50. At least two were hospitalized.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs will also participate in the briefing. He said Sunday that now is not the time to panic about the spread of the disease as homeland security officials, health and human services officials, the CDC and the Homeland Security Council in the White House are all briefing President Obama on the movement of the flu.
The deadly swine flu strain in Mexico has killed up to 81 people and likely sickened 1,324 since April 13. Israel and Spain have both reported suspected isolated cases after citizens from those countries returned home from Mexico. The Israeli Health Ministry said the biggest concern is a spread of the disease from person to person.
Swine flu is dangerous because it changes its form and takes on characteristics like bird flu, and there is no vaccination. It’s a melange of viruses packed into one. Swine flu is usually a mild infection. It’s suggested for people to stay away from those infected and to thoroughly wash your hands. It’s a bit confused why so many people in Mexico have died because swine flu does respond to Tamiflu and other anti-viral medicines.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/26/2009Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that students at a New York high school were infected with swine flu.
New York officials previously had said they were eight “probable” cases, but tests later confirmed that it was indeed swine flu. Bloomberg stressed that the cases were mild and many are recovering.
The city is awaiting the tests of additional samples to see if more students were infected.
The World Health Organization chief said Saturday that the strain has “pandemic potential,” and it might be too late to contain a sudden outbreak.
If the CDC confirms that the New York students have swine flu, Frieden said he likely will recommend that the school remain closed Monday “out of an abundance of caution.”
State infectious-diseases, epidemiology and disaster preparedness workers have been dispatched to monitor and respond to possible cases of the flu. Gov. David Paterson said 1,500 treatment courses of the antiviral Tamiflu had been sent to New York City.
The city health department has asked doctors to be extra vigilant and test patients who have flu symptoms and have traveled recently to California, Texas or Mexico.
Kansas health officials said Saturday that they had confirmed swine flu in a married couple living in the central part of the state after the husband visited Mexico. The couple, who live in Dickinson County, weren’t hospitalized, and the state described their illnesses as mild.
At least nine swine flu cases have been reported in California and Texas. The most recent California case, the state’s seventh, was a 35-year-old woman from Imperial County who got sick in early April. She had no known contact with the others.
Health officials are concerned because people appear to have no immunity to the virus, a combination of bird, swine and human influenzas. The virus also presents itself like other swine flus, but none of the U.S. cases appear to involve direct contact with pigs.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/26/2009The latest from the news conference…
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/26/napolitano-cdc-hold-joint-news-conference-swine-flu/
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/26/2009The United States stepped up preparations for a possible swine flu epidemic, and Canada confirmed its first cases on Sunday as researchers worked to determine how contagious the virus could be.
Keiji Fukuda, the assistant director-general of the World Health Organization, called the outbreak “serious” on Sunday. Researchers are still trying to determine how easily the virus is transmitted person to person and it’s too early to predict whether there will be a mild or serious pandemic, said Fukuda.
By Sunday afternoon, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said 81 deaths were suspected to be from the outbreak and 374 people remained hospitalized. Another 929 people have been examined and sent home, he said.
“These people have shown up at some medical institution in the country with respiratory symptoms that required to be studied and diagnosed,” he said.
Mexico City closed all of its schools and universities until further notice because of the virus, and troops passed out filter masks outside the National Cathedral on Sunday morning. No masses were scheduled at the cathedral, but dozens of worshippers put on masks and went inside the church to pray on their own.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/27/2009Clinton Urges ‘Caution’ for Americans Traveling to Mexico
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged “caution” for anyone traveling to Mexico, as her department was preparing to potentially issue a warning Monday advising Americans to avoid all “non-essential” travel to the southern neighbor out of concern for the swine flu outbreak.
The number of confirmed swine flu cases in the United States has doubled to 40, the World Health Organization announced, saying it “very concerned” about the disease’s spread. The U.N. agency said it could decide within hours whether to raise its pandemic alert level.
The United States cases spanned New York, Kansas, California, Texas and Ohio. Many of those who contracted the illness had recently visited Mexico.
All of those sickened in the United States have recovered or are recovering — a stark difference from the outbreak in Mexico that authorities cannot yet explain.
The U.S. declared a national health emergency Sunday in the midst of confusion about whether new numbers really meant ongoing infections — or just that health officials had missed something simmering for weeks or months. But the move allowed the government to ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they eventually need them.
Richard Vesser, acting head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, revealed that U.S. authorities were starting to undertake “passive screening” at its borders. He restated the Obama administration’s call of Sunday for people to stay calm and reported that U.S. border officials would be “asking people about fever and illness, looking for people who are ill.”
Complicating response strategies internationally was what a World Health Organization official described as difficulty experts were having in assessing precisely the nature of the threat.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/27/2009Obama Admin. Releases Stockpile of Antiflu Virus Drug
The Obama administration was “all hands on deck” today in response to the quickly escalating swine flu outbreak, with the declaration of a public health emergency and the release of the national antiflu drug stockpile.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/27/2009The World Health Organization raised its alert level but stopped short of declaring a global emergency. California and Texas confirmed new cases, and New Jersey and North Carolina joined the growing list of states with suspected swine flu cases. The World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert for a new strain of swine flu by one level, two levels short of declaring a full pandemic.
The phase 4 alert means there is sustained human-to-human transmission in at least one country, WHO said. As of Monday, there were 24 new cases of swine flu in the U.S. including 20 in New York, 3 in California and 1 in Texas, raising the total number of cases nationwide to 44. California health officials have confirmed a total of 11 cases. The most severe case reported so far in California was that of a 35-year-old woman hospitalized in intesive care before recovering.
Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines dusted off thermal scanners used during the 2003 SARS crisis and were checking for signs of fever among passengers arriving from North America. South Korea and Indonesia introduced similar screening. China, Russia and Taiwan said it would quarantine visitors showing symptoms of the virus amid a surging global concern about a possible pandemic. The World Health Organization spokesman Paul Garwood said the health body was recommending calm and common sense — “if people feel sick, if people feel they are suffering from some kind of ailment like flu (then) they need to go and see a doctor.”
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/28/2009Swine Flu Triggers Outbreak of Finger-Pointing on Capitol Hill Over Stimulus Funds
With the swine flu threatening to grow into a pandemic, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have wasted little time using the issue to kick off a fresh round of finger-pointing over February’s economic stimulus package.
Democrats and liberal bloggers are complaining that Republican lawmakers — most notably Maine Sen. Susan Collins — stripped funding for pandemic flu preparedness out of the $787 billion package.
Collins is one of three Republicans who worked with Democrats to pare down the stimulus bill by more than $100 billion. Among the items that were slashed was $870 million in flu-fighting money, which Collins lobbied against.
With 64 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States, none of them fatal, the Obama administration is taking a number of what it calls precautionary measures. It has about 12 million doses of Tamiflu in the federal stockpile for the states.
After declaring a public health emergency over the weekend, the administration on Monday urged travelers to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico, where about 150 people are suspected to have died from the swine flu. Customs officials are also checking people crossing the border for symptoms in an attempt to isolate potentially infected travelers.
The administration is urging calm and has not complained that a lack of stimulus funding is hampering its response.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/28/2009California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a “state of emergency” for the state after local officials confirmed 13 cases of the swine flu in California. None has been fatal, although Los Angeles County Coroner’s officials were investigating two deaths as possibly related to the disease.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/28/2009Cuba banned flights to Mexico, where swine flu is believed to have killed more than 150 people. Mexico City, one of the world’s largest cities, cracked down even further on public life, closing gyms, swimming pools and pool halls and ordering restaurants to limit service to takeout. Earlier, the city shut down schools, state-run theaters and other public places.
But for all the government intervention, health officials around the world suggested the flu virus strain was spreading so fast that efforts to contain it might prove ineffective.
“Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work,” World Health Organization spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global economy.
Obama’s request for $1.5 billion in emergency funds would help build drug stockpiles and monitor future cases as well as help international efforts. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the flu outbreak requires “prudent planning” and not panic.
Cuba was the first country to impose an outright travel ban. But the United States and a number of other countries, including Canada, Israel, France and the European Union’s disease control agency have warned against nonessential travel to Mexico.
The swine flu already has spread to at least six countries besides Mexico, prompting WHO to raise its alert level on Monday but not call for travel bans or border closings.
Around the world, officials hoped the outbreak would not turn into a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that spreads across a wide geographical area.
“It’s a very serious possibility, but it is still too early to say that this is inevitable,” the WHO’s flu chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, told a telephone news conference.
Flu deaths are nothing new in the United States or elsewhere. The CDC estimates that about 36,000 people died of flu-related causes each year, on average, during the 1990s in the United States.
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/29/2009The count now is 91 confirmed in the US
newsdeskinternational
/ 04/30/2009No evidence to raise pandemic alert level: WHO
There was no evidence on Thursday to suggest the World Health Organization should raise its pandemic alert to the highest level due to a swine flu outbreak, a top WHO official said. Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general, told reporters Swiss drugmaker Roche indicated it was stepping up production of Tamiflu to deal with the infection.
Wednesday, the WHO raised its pandemic alert level to phase 5, indicating a global outbreak was imminent. That is a notch below the agency’s highest alert level.
“Today that evidence holds steady,” Fukuda told reporters.
The H1N1 strain first emerged in Mexico and has killed up to 176 people in Mexico.
newsdeskinternational
/ 05/02/2009Canada: 1st pigs found with new swine flu virus
Pigs on a Canadian farm have been infected with the new swine flu virus — apparently by a farm worker back from Mexico — and are under quarantine, officials said Saturday. It is the first known case of pigs having the virus.
But officials quickly urged caution. Swine flu regularly causes outbreaks in pigs and the pigs do not pose a food safety risk, Dr. Brian Evans, executive vice president with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, told a news conference.
The officials said the pigs in the province of Alberta were thought to be infected by a Canadian farm worker who recently visited Mexico and got sick after returning to Canada.
The traveler has recovered, and the estimated 200 sickened pigs are recovering as well, officials said. No pigs have died, and officials said they don’t think the flu has spread beyond the farm.
Normally, detecting influenza in pigs would not generate a response from food safety officials, but the current circumstances are different with the international flu outbreak, Evans said.
“The chance that these pigs could transfer virus to a person is remote,” he said, adding that he would have no issue eating pork from the infected pigs.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Canada has taken the necessary precautions to prevent the spread of the disease. He said there have been no reports of the virus in U.S. pigs and noted the sick Canadian swine have been quarantined.
“This detection does not change the situation here in the United States,” he said.
The World Health Organization has insisted there is no evidence that pigs are passing the virus to humans, or that eating pork products poses an infection risk.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture and World Health Organization, along with the WTO and the World Organization for Animal Health, issued a joint statement Saturday saying there’s no justification for any anti-pork trade measures as a result of the swine flu epidemic since there is no evidence the virus is spread by food.
The statement was the most emphatic yet from the United Nations and other agencies on the issue.
The statement came after major American pork importers like Russia and China banned pork products from certain U.S. states as the new swine flu spread. Indonesia, Ukraine and the Philippines and Serbia have banned certain pork products from the entire country.
Canadian officials called such measures unwarranted.
The pigs in Alberta were thought to be infected by a farm worker who returned from Mexico on April 12 and began working on the farm two days later. Officials noticed the pigs had flu-like symptoms April 24, Evans said.
Approximately 10 percent of the 2,200 pigs on the farm have been infected, Evans said.
Officials said the pigs were likely infected in the same manner as humans worldwide, and that the virus is acting no differently in the pigs than other swine flu viruses.
“Whatever virus these pigs were exposed to is behaving in that exact manner as those we regularly see circulating in North America and in swine herds in virtually every nation around the world,” Evans said.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, studies have shown that swine flu is common throughout pig populations worldwide, with 25 percent of animals showing antibody evidence of infection.
The new virus has shown no signs of mutation when passing from human to pig, Evans said.
newsdeskinternational
/ 05/03/2009And the battle begins, laying blame…but don’t they make sense?
Immigration foes link flu to Mexican threat claims
The swine flu virus has infected the immigration debate, with talk show comments like “fajita flu” and “illegal aliens are the carriers” drawing vehement protests from Hispanic advocates.
The volatile immigration issue had cooled off on talk shows and in the blogosphere as the presidential election and economic crisis unfolded. Now, some are using the spread of the virus to renew arguments that immigration from Mexico is a threat to America.
There have been no reports of swine flu leading to incidents of discrimination or profiling of Hispanics. But some Hispanics say racist anti-immigration rhetoric fueled the recent rise in hate crimes against Latinos, and they want to prevent another surge.
Since the virus began to spread, talk radio host Michael Savage has said the Mexican border should be closed immediately and that “illegal aliens are the carriers.” Another radio personality, Neal Boortz, has suggested calling the virus the “fajita flu,” and CNN’s Lou Dobbs called it the “Mexican flu,” according to the liberal watchdog group Media Matters.
Boston radio host Jay Severin was suspended indefinitely for calling Mexican immigrants “criminaliens” and emergency rooms “condos for Mexicans” during a discussion about swine flu. A member of a New York City commission on women’s issues, Betsy Perry, apologized for blogging that Mexico might need to “get a grip on its banditos” and other flu-related remarks.
In an interview, Savage, who says he has a Ph.D in epidemiology and human nutrition from the University of California-Berkeley, said his remarks were based on science.
“The first rule of epidemiology is to find the epicenter of the disease and close it off,” he said. “This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with epidemiology. Viruses do not discriminate.”
The World Health Organization does not recommend closing borders, saying that would have little effect, if any, on stopping the virus from spreading. President Barack Obama called the idea “closing the barn door after the horses are out.”
What some call science, others call racism.
“Using fears over a serious and ongoing public health issue to demonize immigrants is incredibly low and incredibly cynical, not to mention completely unsubstantiated,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. “Some of these comments are overtly racist and have no place in our public discourse.”
newsdeskinternational
/ 05/03/2009They are a bit overboard now. The Egyptian government ordered the slaughter of all pigs in that country, yet they can still sell the meat. Today, over 1,000 pig farmers clashed with police.
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/news/s … tm&sc=1107
newsdeskinternational
/ 05/10/2009Update
H1N1 flu tally 4,379 in 29 countries – WHO
4,379 people infected with H1N1 flu in 29 countries
* Big increase in confirmed cases in United States
* First death reported in Costa Rica
ZURICH, May 10 (Reuters) – H1N1 flu has infected 4,379 people in 29 countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Sunday, increasing its count by almost a thousand in a day.
The WHO tally tends to lag national reports but is considered more definitive.
The U.N. agency said Mexico has reported 1,626 confirmed cases, up from 1,364 on Saturday, and repeated that 45 people have died there from the new flu strain that is a genetic mixture of swine, bird and human viruses.
The Mexican government has said the worst is over and eased restrictions on commercial and public activity in the country that has been at the epicentre of the outbreak.
The WHO’s latest flu tally increased the number of confirmed infections in the United States to 2,254 from 1,639 reported on Saturday, while the number of reported deaths remained at two.
U.S. officials on Saturday said a man died from the new flu in Washington state last week, bringing the toll in the United States to three.
WHO increased the number of infections in Canada to 280, from 242, and repeated one person had died there.
It said one person had also died in Costa Rica, which had eight confirmed cases.
European countries with cases confirmed in WHO laboratories include Spain (93), Britain (39), Germany (11), Italy (9), France (12), Portugal (1), Ireland (1), Netherlands (3), Austria (1), Denmark (1), Sweden (1), Switzerland (1) and Poland (1).
The WHO also confirmed the following infections in the rest of the world: Israel (7), New Zealand (7), Brazil (6), Japan (4), Panama (3). South Korea (3), El Salvador (2), Hong Kong, China (1), Guatemala (1), Colombia (1) Argentina (1) and Australia (1).
Evidence that the disease, popularly known as swine flu, has taken hold in communities outside the Americas would prompt WHO Director-General Margaret Chan to declare a full pandemic.
Chan raised the global pandemic alert level last week to 5 out of 6 in response to the spread of H1N1 flu. Phase 5 means a pandemic is imminent.
The WHO also repeated its guidance that international travel should not be restricted as a result of the outbreak.
newsdeskinternational
/ 07/26/2009Europe Fast-Tracking Swine Flu Vaccine
In a drive to inoculate people against swine flu before winter, many European governments say they will fast-track the testing of a new flu vaccine, arousing concern among some experts about safety issues and proper vaccine doses.
The European Medicines Agency, the EU’s top drug regulatory body, is accelerating the approval process for swine flu vaccine, and countries such as Britain, Greece, France and Sweden say they’ll start using the vaccine after it’s greenlighted — possibly within weeks.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization’s flu chief, warned about the potential dangers of untested vaccines, although he stopped short of criticizing Europe’s approach outright.
“One of the things which cannot be compromised is the safety of vaccines,” he said Friday. “There are certain areas where you can make economies, perhaps, but certain areas where you simply do not try to make any economies.”
Flu vaccines have been used for 40 years, and many experts say extensive testing is unnecessary, since the swine flu vaccine will simply contain a new ingredient: the swine flu virus.
But European officials won’t know if the new vaccine causes any rare side effects until millions of people get the shots. Still, they say the benefit of saving lives is worth the gamble.
“Everybody is doing the best they can in a situation which is far from ideal,” said Martin Harvey-Allchurch, a spokesman for the European Medicines Agency. “With the winter flu season approaching, we need to make sure the vaccine is available.”
In Europe, flu vaccines are usually tested on hundreds of people for several weeks or months, to ensure the immune system produces enough antibodies to fight the infection.
But to ensure swine flu vaccine is available as soon as possible, the European Medicines Agency is allowing companies to skip testing in large numbers of people before the vaccine is approved.
The main issue is probably that without thorough testing it’s difficult to gauge the effective dosage — meaning Europeans might get too weak a vaccine. It’s unlikely the vaccine would endanger anyone, but until it is used in large numbers of people, no one will know for sure.
Europeans appear ready to use the vaccine widely before conducting any big studies to prove it is safe and effective. Neither the vaccine makers nor the European Medicines Agency would specify what basic safety tests are being done.
The U.S. is taking a more cautious approach: the government called Wednesday for several thousand volunteers to be injected with the swine flu vaccine in tests beginning in August to assess the vaccine’s safety. American officials said results should be ready by the time the U.S. plans to roll out a vaccination campaign in October.
Results from the U.S. tests will be of limited use to Europe, since countries like Britain plan to start vaccinating as early as August — before any American trial data is available. The vaccines used in the U.S. will also be different from those in Europe.
Some experts favor urgent action.
“The consequences of not having a vaccine if this virus gets worse are very high,” said Leonard Marcus, a public health expert at Harvard University. “If (regulatory authorities) took all the time that was necessary to make sure there are no side effects, ironically, in the effort to save a few lives, many lives could be lost.”
But critics say dangers lurk in any strategy to vaccinate without robust testing.
Scant information exists on flu vaccines with adjuvants, a component used to stretch the active ingredient that is commonly found in European flu vaccines. There are no licensed flu vaccines with the ingredient in the U.S.
There is also limited or no data on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines with adjuvants in children under 3 and pregnant women — two of the most vulnerable groups in a pandemic — a global outbreak.
Mass swine flu vaccination campaigns will also take place in the shadow of the 1976 swine flu disaster, when hundreds of people in the U.S. developed Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing disorder, after being vaccinated.
Experts don’t know why that happened, but say modern vaccine production techniques have improved since 1976. To avoid a similar episode, some say comprehensive testing before the vaccine is rolled out is essential.
“I can’t see any possible excuse to not test it for safety before it’s given to anyone,” said George Annas, a bioethics expert at Boston University.
If the vaccine turns out to have dangerous side effects, it could generate a public backlash, particularly in a country like Britain, where many people remain suspicious of vaccines because of unsubstantiated allegations linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. That could lead to millions of people refusing vaccination.
When the bird flu crisis hit several years ago, the European Medicines Agency designed a special protocol to approve a vaccine for use in a pandemic as soon as possible.
The agency let companies submit data for a “mock-up” vaccine, using H5N1 bird flu. The idea was to do most of the testing before the global epidemic hit so when it did, drugmakers could insert the pandemic virus into the vaccine at the last minute.
When the first swine flu vaccine doses are ready, the European Medicines Agency will approve them largely based on data from the bird flu vaccine, since both will have the same basic ingredients.
If the agency thinks the bird flu data predicts how the swine flu virus will work, they will approve it, said spokesman Harvey-Allchurch.
The agency will then require regular reporting of the vaccine’s effects as it is being administered — monitoring that is normally done beforehand.
WHO’s Fukuda said everyone involved in making the vaccine, from manufacturers to regulatory agencies, is looking at what steps can be taken to streamline the process.
“But there is no one who disagrees that one of the absolutes is that there can’t be any question whether the vaccine is safe or not,” he said.
WHO reported that the swine flu viruses aren’t producing enough of a key vaccine ingredient, which may limit how much vaccine is available. Its laboratory network is now working to produce a new set of viruses that it hopes will work better.
Drugmakers including Baxter International, GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Novartis and Sanofi-Pasteur, however, insist they will be able to start shipping the first batches of vaccine soon.
British health officials have repeatedly said they will start vaccinating in August, as soon as the vaccine is approved. Other European countries, including Greece, France, Sweden, say they will use the vaccine after it gets the green light from the European agency, but none other than Britain expect to start the shots next month.
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/07/2009Tamiflu – 1- pills by prescription only $110….
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/16/2009Trials Begin For UK Swine Flu Vaccine
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has begun testing the vaccine on 128 adults in Germany and hopes to get the jab to Britain by October.
The Government is preparing a mass vaccination after it ordered 132m doses of GSK’s drug.
Although the number of new cases per week has dropped from 110,000 to 25,000, the proportion of healthy people dying from the virus is still higher than regular flu.
There are also concerns that the anti-retroviral drug Tamiflu could lose its effectiveness against future strains of the H1N1 virus.
The first to be immunised will be the five million at risk of regular seasonal flu, as well as pregnant women, people with compromised immune systems and about two million health and social workers.
GSK spokesperson Alex Harrison told Sky News Online that there would be “the normal side effects” with the drug.
She said: “A slight redness around the [point of] injection, that sort of thing.”
The drug company hopes that by using a special chemical called AS03 it will be able to produce much more of the vaccine.
AS03 was used in GSK’s vaccine for avian flu and has already received approval from the European Union.
But the World Health Organisation has expressed concern at Britain’s decision to fast-track the drug past safety tests.
GSK’s head of research Thomas Breuer said that the drug would be tested on 9,000 people before it is released.
There are several pharmaceutical companies who are developing similar vaccines to be sent to other countries.
Earlier this week British patients were used in human trials at Leciester Royal Infirmary for a foreign vaccine.
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/22/2009WHO seeks flu vaccine donations for poorer nations
The World Health Organization’s flu chief urged drug makers on Saturday to donate swine flu vaccines to the world’s poorest countries, which are more vulnerable in the fight against the pandemic.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda said the agency is working hard to lobby the world’s rich nations and flu vaccine makers for donations.
“It is clear that the poorest countries in general are just the most vulnerable to any number of diseases, and so it is a big concern,” Fukuda said on the sidelines of a symposium of health officials and experts in Beijing. “We’re continually hoping that more of the companies will step up and agree to donate more of the vaccine.”
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/news/story.jsp?floc=ne-world-12-l17&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20090822%2F0621476496.htm&sc=1104
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/23/2009U.S. preps for vast swine flu vaccine effort
Effort to innoculate half of population within months is unprecedented
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32524843/ns/health-more_health_news/
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/24/2009The latest update on Swine Flu>>
Also I might add, we will also include updates from Britain’s cases….
H1N1 flu “serious health threat” to U.S.: White House
Massachusetts (Reuters) – The H1N1 flu poses a serious health threat to the United States, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said in a report released on Monday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE57N3T920090824
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/24/2009H1N1 Could Kill as Many as 30,000 to 90,000 in U.S.
The H1N1 flu virus could cause as many as 30,000 and 90,000 deaths in the United States and “poses a serious health threat” the Obama administration’s advisory group on Science and Technology said in a report released Monday.
Deaths would be concentrated among children and young adults, according to the report. In contrast, the typical seasonal flu kills between 30,000 and 40,000 annually — mainly among people over 65.
The report predicts 1.8 million will be hospitalized during the epidemic, with up to 300,000 patients requiring intensive care units.
These patients could occupy 50-100 percent of all ICU beds in affected regions at the peak of the epidemic and would place “enormous stress” on ICU units.
More needs to be done to speed up the “preparation of flu vaccine for distribution to high-risk individuals,” otherwise the vaccine campaign – currently scheduled to begin in mid October — will have potentially missed the peak of the epidemic, according to the report.
Monday’s report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, PCAST, shows a sober assessment of the dangers of a pandemic, but also serves as a pat on the back for a White House preparing for its first public health crisis.
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/25/2009E.U. Officials Lay Out Priorities for Swine Flu Vaccine
European Union health officials issued a list Tuesday of people who should be the first in line for vaccinations against the H1N1, or swine flu, virus.
People at risk of severe disease, pregnant women and health care workers should be given priority for inoculations before the winter flu season, said the officials, who represent 27 E.U. countries and the European Commission.
Prioritizing those groups is necessary because “there will probably not be vaccine available for everyone initially, and even if there is, distribution will take time,” the officials said in a statement.
The officials said the recommendations were “indicative” and that “countries may wish to adapt the prioritization in line with their epidemiology, health service provision and resources.” They did not say whether vaccinations could be mandatory in some cases, although some governments, including Britain, have already ruled out that possibility.
A similar group of E.U. officials said this month that there was no need to delay the return to school after the summer break. Even so, the E.U. officials said schools in some areas could be forced to close if outbreaks are particularly severe.
In the United States, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reached a similar verdict Tuesday, saying that large-scale school closings would be ineffective in halting the spread of the virus. Instead, Ms. Sebelius said on NBC television, vaccinations would be the defense.
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/26/2009Judge denies group’s flu vaccine request
A judge on Wednesday denied an advocacy group’s bid to prevent the government from giving pregnant women flu vaccines with a preservative that contains mercury.
http://home.peoplepc.com/psp/newsstory.asp?cat=politics&id=20090826/4a94c150_3421_1334520090826-1089921876
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/26/2009Fox News:
H1N1 Is Nothing New
The H1N1 flu virus has been around for decades in various strains. The new virus, however, is different in that it contains a mix of human, bird and swine strains of the virus.
“An H1N1 strain has been included in the influenza vaccine every year since 1977,” Gross said, “which is why the elderly and people in their 50s who have been getting the vaccine for the past 32 years are not really at a significant risk for complications from the novel H1N1 virus, like they are from the seasonal flu.”
The process of manufacturing the H1N1 vaccine is also being made over a much shorter time period than the traditional flu vaccine because of fears of what might happen should a fall or winter outbreak occur and no vaccine be available.
“If people aren’t vaccinated, you’re going to see a lot more complications, a lot more hospitalizations,” said Gross. “Even so, we have to realize that the experience the U.S. had with novel H1N1 virus is very different than the experience Mexico had. Mexico had a lot more deaths. We’ve had 500 to 600, and I’m not trying to minimize any of the deaths, but that’s not even on par with the seasonal flu, which results in about 35,000 deaths.”
The first human volunteers to test the new vaccine were inoculated this month. Most of the volunteers will receive two shots, spaced three weeks apart and it will take another few weeks for volunteers to demonstrate full immunity to the virus if the vaccine works the way it should.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Monday that all Americans who receive the vaccine will also need two shots, meaning that if the vaccine arrives on schedule for mid-October, most will not have full immunity to the virus until Thanksgiving.
However, fears that manufacturers are moving too fast may be unfounded.
“If the vaccine passes all of the trials and the only thing that results is a sore arm, then most people who receive the vaccine will probably only receive a sore arm,” Gross said. “Serious side effects are rare and we might not know what those will be until 100,000 or a million people are vaccinated. Serious side effects for the polio vaccine were 1 in a million and that’s something you can’t figure out until a million people are vaccinated.”
Three Shots Instead of One?
Americans are potentially looking at three flu shots this year instead of the normal one shot. That would include one for the seasonal flu, and two for the new H1N1 virus.
Who should consider getting all three?
“Pregnant women, people in their 20s to 40s, very young children and, in contrast to previous years, those above 50 will not need the H1N1 vaccine unless they are in a high risk category or have underlying health problems,” Gross said
newsdeskinternational
/ 08/27/2009About half of Hong Kong’s health workers would refuse the swine flu vaccine, new research says, a trend that experts say would likely apply worldwide. In a study that polled 2,255 Hong Kong health workers this year, researchers found even during the height of global swine flu panic in May, less than half were willing to get vaccinated.
Most said they would pass on the swine flu shot, which is not yet available, because they were afraid of side effects and doubted how safe and effective it would be.
Doctors and nurses are on the swine flu front lines – and if they become infected, they may not only spread the disease to patients, but their absence from work could cripple health systems.
The World Health Organization recommends countries vaccinate their health workers. Many Western countries including Britain, Spain, and the U.S. have said doctors and nurses will be among the first to get swine flu shots.
The study results, published online in BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, suggest that carrying out those plans may be tricky.
“A good argument can be made that health workers have an ethical obligation to be vaccinated, not to protect themselves, but to protect their patients,” said George Annas, a bioethics expert at Boston University. “But if they don’t believe that vaccine to be safe and effective, it will be a hard sell.”
Several drug makers are testing their swine flu vaccines. So far, officials say that among the few thousand people who got the injections no one has reported anything more serious than a sore or swollen arm.
It is unlikely any rare side effects will pop up until the vaccine is given to millions. That might include things like Guillain-Barre syndrome, a temporary paralyzing disorder, which was seen after the 1976 swine flu vaccination campaign, and happens fewer than once every 1 million vaccinations.
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong surveyed doctors and nurses in public hospitals this year from January to May, asking them if they would get a pandemic vaccine based either on bird flu or swine flu. About 35 percent of health workers were willing to get a bird flu vaccine, versus 48 percent for swine flu.
Experts were surprised so few of Hong Kong’s health workers were willing to be vaccinated, since the city was hit hard during the 2003 outbreak of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
Paul Chan of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, one of the study authors, thought the results would be similar elsewhere. Fewer than 60 percent of health workers in most countries get vaccinated against regular flu, thought to be a reliable indicator of whether they might get a swine flu shot. In the U.S., about 35 percent of health workers get a regular flu shot, while in Britain, only about 17 percent do.
Annas said health workers were ultimately like everyone else when it comes to getting vaccines. “Like the lay population, they assume they won’t need the shot because they don’t think they will get the flu.”
Snowfire
/ 09/27/2009I have been following all information on swine flu…..I still say it is too dangerous to think about getting this shot…I will just take my chances…
Government to Intensely Track for H1N1 Shot Side Effects
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,556160,00.html
newsdeskinternational
/ 10/26/2009FDA Allows Use of Experimental Antiviral Drug to Treat H1N1
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is allowing the use of an experimental antiviral drug to treat severe cases of H1N1 or swine flu.
The drug, Peramivir, is currently being developed by BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. and is undergoing testing required for regular FDA approval.
The FDA issued a so-called emergency use authorization late Friday that allows doctors to use Peramivir, which is delivered intravenously, in certain hospitalized adult and pediatric patients with confirmed or suspected H1N1 influenza.
A handful of doctors have already treated patients with severe cases of H1N1 using Peramivir obtained through the agency’s expanded access rules that allow individual patients to obtain experimental drugs if certain conditions are met. The emergency-use authorization allows use of the drug without prior FDA approval.
newsdeskinternational
/ 11/01/2009Study: Side Effects Not Necessarily From H1N1 Vaccine
Hundreds of people on any given day will die, develop the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome or have spontaneous abortions, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that their swine flu vaccination shot was to blame, a new study says.
As millions of people worldwide begin getting the new swine flu shot, public health officials are bracing for rumors about dangerous side effects linked to the vaccine.
To provide context, experts combed hospital databases and population samples in Britain, Canada, Finland, the United States and elsewhere to find daily baseline rates of commonly reported events like Guillain-Barre syndrome, sudden deaths, seizures and abortions. The research was published online Saturday in the British medical journal Lancet.
They found that in Britain, for every 10 million people who might get the swine flu shot, about 22 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome and 6 unexplained deaths will likely occur within 6 weeks of vaccination — and probably won’t be caused by the vaccine.
In the U.S., experts expect that for every 1 million pregnant women who get the swine flu shot, 397 will have a spontaneous abortion within a day.
Only if the rates of these events exceed these baseline numbers should experts suspect the vaccine might be responsible.
“People die every day for lots of reasons, but we tend not to think about that when a mass immunization campaign is happening,” said Steven Black of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, one of the paper’s authors. “We’re not saying we don’t need to look at vaccine safety, but let’s do it judiciously.”
Black, like several of the study’s authors, received grants from companies that make swine flu vaccine.
Mass immunization campaigns for diseases like measles and yellow fever have frequently been undermined by rumors that the vaccines cause dangerous side effects.
Still, rumors may also mask legitimate vaccine concerns. In Nigeria, fears that the oral polio vaccine causes HIV were unfounded but concern about the vaccine was not entirely unwarranted: it does cause polio in rare instances.
“The greatest danger ahead is that there will be coincidental events between (swine flu) vaccination and adverse health events and people will draw conclusions that are not based on science,” said Leonard Marcus of Harvard University’s School of Public Health, an expert not linked to the study.
Marcus said health officials must be vigilant in case any unforeseen side effects do pop up.
“When side effects happen to an individual, it’s devastating. And it’s human nature to want to link it to a recent vaccination,” Marcus said. “But it’s also possible to be compassionate without leaping to conclusions.”
Of the thousands of people so far who have received the swine flu vaccine worldwide, no side effects more serious than a sore arm, fever, or muscle pain have been reported.
Now this came from the British government….you decide, is it safe?
Locket
/ 11/01/2009I don’t think it’s perfected yet….it hasn’t had enough testing….it could trigger a reaction from an unknown illness that may lie dormant for years….
newsdeskinternational
/ 11/02/2009Congressman Blasts H1N1 Vaccine Distribution to Gitmo Detainees During Shortage
A Missouri congressman expressed outrage Monday over the distribution of H1N1 vaccines to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, saying the most vulnerable Americans — women and children — are “no longer first.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/02/congressman-blasts-hn-vaccine-distribution-gitmo-detainees-shortage/
newsdeskinternational
/ 11/03/2009It seems there has now been a change of mind, in giving the Gitmo detainees the vaccine…
White House: No flu vaccine for Gitmo detainees
The White House says detainees at Guantanamo Bay are not yet receiving vaccinations against the swine flu.
Robert Gibbs on Tuesday said concern that terrorism suspects at the U.S. naval base in Cuba were receiving vaccines was misplaced. Gibbs says no vaccines are at the naval base and none are on the way. A spokesman for the U.S. jail facility a day earlier said guards and then inmates were scheduled for inoculations. Critics were fast to object, saying U.S. civilians were waiting for vaccines while suspected terrorists were being given injections.
Army Maj. James Crabtree said Monday that doses should start arriving this month and medical personnel requested the doses. He said detainees will be vaccinated “entirely on a voluntary basis.”
newsdeskinternational
/ 11/12/2009CDC: H1N1 Has Sickened 22 Million in 6 Months
Government health officials say swine flu has sickened about 22 million Americans since April.
They say about 4,000 have died, including 540 children.
The startling new figures — about four times higher than previous death estimates — don’t mean swine flu has suddenly gotten worse. Instead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday called them a long-awaited better attempt to understand the virus’ true toll.
The CDC now believes that about 98,000 people have been hospitalized in the first six months of the nation’s swine flu epidemic, including 36,000 children.
newsdeskinternational
/ 11/18/2009Serious adverse reactions and at least one death have been attributed to the H1N1 flu vaccine in Canada, the country’s top doctor said.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/11/18/Adverse-reactions-to-H1N1-vaccine-showing/UPI-49261258573820/
newsdeskinternational
/ 11/20/2009Health officials say swine flu cases appear to be declining throughout most of the U.S., but the specter of Thanksgiving gatherings makes it hard to predict what will happen next.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that reports of swine flu illnesses were widespread in 43 states last week, down from 46 the week before.
CDC officials also say reports have been increasing in a few states, including Maine and Hawaii. They say it’s hard to know whether the epidemic has peaked or not, and many people will be gathering – and spreading germs – next week at Thanksgiving.