Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Network alerted Mexican officials to flu

By James F. Smith Globe Staff / April 28, 2009

The winter flu season was winding down in Mexico and the number of cases should have been going down, too. But a high-tech command center in Mexico City, linking a nationwide network of 11,000 disease surveillance units, was picking up unusual signs of an uptick.

That triggered an investigation that isolated a new human virus. Then scientists in Canada quickly carried out complex genetic sequencing, and within a couple of weeks, researchers had unraveled the mystery of a new influenza virus that was spreading among humans, with potentially global consequences.

Dr. Julio Frenk, the former national health minister of Mexico who is the new dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, said the 25-year-old Mexican surveillance system worked just as it was designed to do, contributing to a sense of comparative calm in Mexico City, the capital, though the swine flu has been blamed for 149 deaths in the country. -snip-

Frenk, who was a top World Health Organization official before becoming Mexico's health minister, said one reason the cases have been more severe in Mexico than in the United States could be that people in Mexico tend to self-medicate for flu symptoms instead of seeing doctors, and that might have allowed the illness to spread. He said that now, however, the message has gotten through that anyone with flu symptoms needs immediate treatment at a clinic because antiviral drugs work well only if administered early - within two days of becoming sick.

He said Mexico has built up very substantial supplies of antiviral medication, and the WHO is making more available.

-snip-

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