This Sunday's Show In a live, EXCLUSIVE interview this Sunday, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius discusses President Obama's plan for health care reform and the administration's response to the spread of the H1N1 virus. |
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
New Information on Indiana Mysterious Death
Last Update: 6:52 pm
New Information:
The Indiana family struck by a fatal medical mystery is thanking everyone for their prayers and asking them to stay calm. The Mcintosh family says doctors still don't know what killed 19-year-old Matt Mcintosh and has his sister Mindy in critical condition.
Vital sections of society could be paralysed if swine flu reaches epidemic proportions as expected, the government has been warned.
A Whitehall meeting of emergency services and business chiefs has been told that more than a third of Britain's businesses have no response plans at all for dealing with the pandemic, while specific fears have been raised about the ability of the country's broadband network and the London Underground to operate effectively.
The development follows news last week that the first British person with no underlying health problems had died of swine flu. The patient, who died on Friday at a hospital in Essex, was the 15th swine flu-related death in the UK. "This death underlines that, although the virus is proving generally mild in most people, it is more severe in some cases," said the government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson.
Doctors have also warned that rates of infection are reaching epidemic levels in London and the West Midlands. Several million people could become ill with either seasonal flu or swine flu by the end of the year. Schools would close and transport and other vital services, such as GP surgeries, would be put under severe strain.
As a result, health officials are considering plans that would allow people with suspected swine flu to take up to two weeks off work without a doctor's note. At present employees are allowed to sign themselves off sick for seven days.
According to data revealed at the Whitehall meeting, 38% of businesses have no response plans for dealing with a pandemic. At the meeting, transport bosses outlined details of how trains, airports and bus services would function. Transport for London officials said staff shortages could produce a reduced tube service but argued this would be sufficient as there would be fewer commuters.
But international business continuity expert Lyndon Bird, who attended the meeting, told the Observer he was "not convinced" by TfL's response. Bird, who is international technical director of the Business Continuity Institute, was also sceptical about the ability of Britain's digital infrastructure to cope with hundreds of thousands of people being forced to work from home.
BT could not give "definitive" assurances that Britain's broadband network would work fully because of the vast numbers of people logging on from home, he said.
Global barometer
During the summer break, all eyes are on the Southern Hemisphere, where the winter flu season is just getting under way.
Scientists are watching to see if the illness grows more severe. They want to know who is at greatest risk, and whether the virus will become drug-resistant or mutate away from the vaccines that big pharmaceutical companies are scrambling to develop.
The picture so far is “largely reassuring,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization’s secretary general, said at an international health meeting in Mexico last week. “The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a full recovery within a week.”
In a summit next week, emergency responders, health officers and school leaders will discuss the possible use of schools as vaccination sites, a protective measure akin to the anti-polio campaigns of half a century ago.
They’ll also share strategies on how to contain the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus among children, who appear to be particularly susceptible.
One certain topic: whether to close schools. Superintendents who cancelled canceled classes in the spring are reexamining those decisions as more is learned about the flu. A likely focus for the fall: keeping schools open, but making sure ill children stay out of school for a full week after symptoms recede.
“Closing school won’t stop the flu,” said Dr. Peter Wenger, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The virus can spread before symptoms appear, and may not be diagnosed for days after a victim recovers and feels fine.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls for a seven-day isolation period, including at least 24 hours after symptoms end. Parents must be responsible for making sure their children adhere to the guideline, said Dr. Wayne Yankus, Ridgewood’s school medical director and chairman of the school-health committee of the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“We rely on parents to use common sense,” he said, such as telling children that they must stay home and miss out on planned practices, dances or trips — the sort of sacrifices that a frustrated Yankus didn’t see this spring.
“People didn’t keep sick kids home,” Yankus said. “A lot of parents don’t care about society. They care about their child and their child’s entitlement.”
Global barometer
During the summer break, all eyes are on the Southern Hemisphere, where the winter flu season is just getting under way.
Scientists are watching to see if the illness grows more severe. They want to know who is at greatest risk, and whether the virus will become drug-resistant or mutate away from the vaccines that big pharmaceutical companies are scrambling to develop.
The picture so far is “largely reassuring,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the World Health Organization’s secretary general, said at an international health meeting in Mexico last week. “The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a full recovery within a week.”
However, “some deaths are occurring in perfectly healthy young people,” she said. And some patients deteriorate very quickly, developing life-threatening pneumonia that requires mechanical ventilation.
The disease is still spreading in New Jersey, with 833 confirmed cases and 10 deaths as of Wednesday. Three of the dead were children: boys ages 6, 10 and 15, from Ocean, Sussex and Somerset counties, respectively. State health officials have said that all those who died in New Jersey had underlying health conditions.
Come fall, health officials are bracing for the worst, while hoping for the best. Once kids are back in classrooms, it may start to spread earlier than the typical seasonal flu. The federal government will test vaccines next month, and if approved, schoolchildren would likely receive the shots by mid-October, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday.
“The worst case is if [the virus] comes roaring back more virulent than it was,” said Dr. Susan Walsh, New Jersey’s deputy commissioner of health. “The best case is that it comes back about the same, maybe drops off a bit.”
So far, more than 80 percent of deaths and severe illnesses in the United States have occurred in people with underlying medical conditions — about the same ratio as seasonal flu. Such conditions include pregnancy, being an infant or over age 65, or having a compromised immune system, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Even if unexpected deaths in young people make up a tiny percentage of all cases, that number could be significant: The great flu pandemic of 1918 infected 20 to 40 percent of the world’s population.
Inconsistency?
Keeping track of ill children is up to local and state health departments, who report every suspected case of swine flu and are in continual communication with local schools. But it’s up to superintendents to decide whether to close schools.
Play CBS Video Video H1N1: A Looming Threat? The U.S. government believes that there will be a vaccine for H1N1 before the fall flu season. Dr. Jennifer Ashton tells Chris Wragge that two vaccines will most likely be available, one for influenza and one for H1N1.
Photo Within a few weeks, manufacturers will deliver test doses of a swine flu vaccine for a study to see if they're safe and seem to work. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Interactive Swine Flu's Impact The latest numbers, photos and information to keep you safe.
 |  | The White House has drawn up a battle plan for taking on the virus when influenza season returns to the northern hemisphere in several weeks' time. -- PHOTO: AP |
BETHESDA (Maryland) - US PRESIDENT Barack Obama and top officials urged Americans on Thursday to ramp up preparations against H1N1 flu, warning that the virus could return with a vengeance in the fall and pledging a huge campaign to beat it.
Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at the meeting in Bethesda warned that (A)H1N1 flu 'is not gone, it's continuing to spread, it's in more than 100 countries around the world and in every state in this country.' And, she warned, US scientists and health officials who have been monitoring the virus as it works its way through the southern hemisphere, think (A)H1N1 'could worsen in the fall or earlier, when schools start to open.'
The White House has drawn up a battle plan for taking on the virus when influenza season returns to the northern hemisphere in several weeks' time. A key facet of the four-tiered plan is vaccination. 'We know that a safe and effective vaccine is the best means of both preventing the disease in individuals and stopping the community spread of the virus.
'That's why we are researching a vaccine now and have already taken steps to purchase vaccine components,' said Ms Sebelius. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said clinical trials on a first candidate vaccine were expected to begin next month.
Scientists would pay attention in the tests to how quickly the vaccine triggers an immune response, he said, saying the knowledge would be crucial in the event of the disease returning in the fall flu season in a more virulent form and spreading rapidly.
Usually, the immune response from flu vaccines kicks in after around three weeks, he said, but the trials would test the (A)H1N1 vaccine candidates to see if they trigger an effective immune response within one week or a fortnight.
Ms Sebelius told the meeting that 'the current estimate is that some vaccine will be ready for distribution in mid-October.' Mr Fauci said there would probably be tens of millions of doses by then.
That would not be enough for a blanket vaccination campaign, so populations who have been shown to be at the greatest risk from the new strain of swine flu - children, pregnant women and health workers who are dealing with the virus on a daily basis - would likely be vaccinated in a first round of immunisations, the officials said.
A handful of pharmaceutical companies around the world are working to develop a vaccine against (A)H1N1 influenza, which the World Health Organization (WHO) says has infected 100,000 people in 137 countries and territories, and caused 440 deaths around the world. -- AFP
| July 11, 2009 |
| Surveillance |
A Filipino domestic helper is in critical condition with human swine flu, the Centre for Health Protection announced today.
It was the second serious case of the virus in
Centre Controller Dr Thomas Tsang said today the maid, 37, needs mechanical ventilation to support her breathing while being treated at the intensive care unit at
Her employers, a couple living in Kwun Tong, also had flu-like symptoms. As the wife is pregnant, she has been admitted to hospital for observation, while the husband was prescribed Tamiflu.
The patient developed a fever a day after arriving in
Her condition quickly deteriorated, though, and she was admitted to
Results of tests taken on July 7 and 8 showed she was negative for Influenza A. But one taken yesterday was positive for Influenza A, while further tests carried out at the centre's lab today confirmed she was infected with human swine flu.
Dr Tsang said they were investigating whether the maid had another hidden disease which could have led to her critical condition.
In the 24 hours up to 2.30pm today, 58 new cases of human swine flu were confirmed, involving 26 males and 32 females, aged between two and 55.
There have been 1,236 human swine flu cases in |
Recombinomics Commentary 14:41
July 11, 2009
By Jason Gale
July 11 (Bloomberg) -- Extremely fat swine flu sufferers may have a tendency to become severely ill, health officials in the U.S. and Europe said, after a report showed a “striking” prevalence of obesity among patients hospitalized in Michigan.
Nine of 10 patients with the pandemic flu strain admitted to an intensive care unit at Ann Arbor from late May to early June, were obese and seven were “extremely obese,” with a body mass index of at least 40, doctors said. Three of the 10 died and seven had no other known health problems.
The study, in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report yesterday, supports a pattern seen by doctors tracking the pandemic in hospital reports from Glasgow to Melbourne and from Santiago to New York. Researchers say the trend is surprising because obesity hasn’t been identified previously as a risk factor for severe complications of seasonal flu.
“Clinicians should be aware that severe illness and fatal outcomes also can occur in patients without known risk factors for complications of seasonal influenza, including persons with extreme obesity,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said in an editorial note accompanying its report.
With the new virus on a collision course with the obesity epidemic, the World Health Organization says it’s gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development.
“Morbid obesity is one of the most common findings turning up in severely ill patients,” said Nikki Shindo, who is leading the investigation of swine flu patients at the WHO in Geneva. “It’s a huge problem.”
Seeking More Answers
So far, the evidence is anecdotal. No global or national data have been reported and the CDC said it’s unknown whether obesity is an independent risk factor. Yesterday, the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Stockholm began including obesity on a list of factors that put patients at risk of dying from the pandemic bug.
Drugmaker Roche Holding AG is combing through studies to determine whether heavier people should get bigger doses of its Tamiflu antiviral. The CDC said yesterday that, until more data are available, a double dose of the Roche pill or a longer course of treatment can be considered for severely ill hospitalized swine flu patients.
The pandemic strain is reported to have killed 429 people worldwide since its discovery in the U.S. and Mexico in April, according to the WHO’s most recent report. The infection, which has spread as far as New Zealand and Norway, causes little more than a fever and cough in most cases. The majority of those who died were pregnant, had asthma, diabetes or other chronic diseases, according to the WHO.
Obesity ‘Stands Out’
“About 75 percent of patients have underlying conditions, and clearly obesity stands out as a statistically significant factor involved in the seriousness of the disease,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. “It was a bit of a surprise to us.”
It’s the first time the prominence of obesity has been widely recognized among severely ill flu sufferers, Fauci said in a July 9 interview. “It’s very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks,” he said.
CDC researchers noted the association among California H1N1 patients in a May 22 report. The agency is investigating whether overweight people need different flu vaccinations. Last year, 26.1 percent of adults in the U.S. were obese, up from 25.6 percent in 2007, the CDC said in a July 8 statement.
Severe Pneumonia
Some patients are showing up at hospitals with viral pneumonia so severe they are suffocating. All 10 of the Michigan patients, ages 21 to 53, suffered acute respiratory distress and weren’t getting enough oxygen even when put on a conventional mechanical ventilator.
The patients, who represent “the most severely ill subset” of H1N1 sufferers, were notable for several reasons, the CDC said. Nine were male, five developed dangerous clots in the lung and major organs became dysfunctional in nine of the patients. The body mass index of nine patients ranged from 34.2 to 58.9, according to the report. People with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 are considered “overweight” and those higher than 30 are “obese.”
“The high prevalence of obesity in this case series is striking,” CDC said.
A 5-foot, 5-inch (1.65 meters) woman is considered overweight at 150 pounds (68 kilograms) and obese at 180 pounds. A 6-foot man is considered overweight at 184 pounds and obese at 221 pounds.
Cause or Complication
Scientists don’t yet know whether extremely overweight people get sicker because of associated conditions like heart disease and asthma, or whether the excess fat itself makes them more vulnerable. Both may be to blame.
Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body’s immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO’s chronic diseases department in Geneva.
What’s more, excess fatty tissue compresses the chest, and the fatty infiltration of the chest wall causes a decrease in lung function and an increase in the pulmonary blood volume, Armstrong said. “If you are obese, you tend to be less physically active and have an associated shallower breathing pattern. All these compound, leading to breathing difficulties.”
Insulin Resistance
The morbidly obese also are more likely to experience insulin resistance, a condition that makes it harder for doctors to lower the level of sugar in the blood of critically ill patients, said Greet Van den Berghe, head of acute medical sciences at Belgium’s Catholic University of Leuven.
“The question has always been, is it the obesity or the other problems?” said Melinda Beck, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “There haven’t been studies that looked just at weight. In my research, it appears to be the obesity itself.”
In mouse studies, flu killed about half of the rodents made obese by a high-fat diet, compared with a mortality rate of about 4 percent in lean animals, according to Beck’s research. She is studying whether obese humans might need stronger doses of vaccine or a different method of delivery.
People may reduce their risk of developing complications from swine flu -- as well as many other diseases -- by maintaining a healthy weight, quitting smoking, exercising regularly and moderating alcohol intake, said Frederick Hayden, a clinical virologist at the University of Virginia.
Rates Jump
Obesity rates have tripled in the U.S., U.K. and Australia during the past three decades, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The ranks of the overweight are also swelling in the developing world. In China, obesity doubled among women and tripled in men between 1989 and 2000 and it may double again in 20 years, according to research released last year in the journal Health Affairs.
Studies are needed to better understand the immune response of obese people and determine whether excess body weight impairs their ability to fight the infection, said Pamela Fraker, a professor of biochemistry at Michigan State University.
“It’s sort of strange that it’s been neglected with this major population,” Fraker said. “We need to know about this for the further care and protection of the growing number of obese we have and for society in general.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 10, 2009 20:28 EDTWashington 08 July 2009 |
Shortly after the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that Zimbabwe must prepare for the threat of swine flu, reports emerged in Harare this week of the country's first two cases on the heels of occurrences in South Africa.
Reuters reported that state media said a man of Asian origin recently arrived from London had tested positively for the virus and was quarantined in Harare.
The agency quoted Health Minister Henry Madzorera as saying he could only confirm the case of an 18-year-old squash player who was being treated in South Africa.
In its latest monthly report, OCHA said Zimbabwe has had a respite from its humanitarian emergency as cholera cases have dwindled, but is now at risk from the H1N1 flu.
When the U.N. agency issued the report two cases had just been reported in South Africa. It said South Africa's proximity raises the need for plans to deal with an outbreak.
Responding to the OCHA warning, Health Minister Henry Madzorera said Zimbabwe is on high alert and has plans to deal with any such outbreak, adding that the country has received sophisticated equipment and drugs from the World Health Organization.
But Dr. Douglas Gwatidzo of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights said he does not believe Zimbabwe is ready to deal with a major outbreak of H1N1 flu, pointing to the need for effective border controls.
Cholera has claimed more than 4,000 lives in the country since August of last year, though the epidemic has subsided significantly from its peak in February.
AIR FORCE ACADEMY - The Air Force Academy says 15 of their basic or incoming cadets have tested positive for H1N1, also known as swine flu, after nearly 100 started showing upper respiratory symptoms.
New Delhi, July 10 : Five people, including two children, were detected with swine flu Friday, taking the total number of influenza A (H1N1) infections in India to 169, health officials said.
--- IANS
Friday, July 10, 2009 — In April 2009 an outbreak of human cases of H1N1 flu was discovered in North America. By mid-June, the World Health Organization had raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6, indicating a global pandemic was underway. More than 70 countries are now reporting cases of human infection.
In the United States, most people who have become ill with H1N1 have recovered without requiring medical treatment. However, according to the CDC, this virus could cause significant illness with associated hospitalizations and deaths in the fall and winter during the U.S. influenza season.
While nobody can be certain of what will happen this fall, the America Red Cross, along with government agencies and partner health organizations, are planning and preparing for the possibility of an increased spread in the H1N1 flu.
This past week, President Obama's cabinet held a H1N1 Flu Preparedness Summit to prepare for the possibility of a more severe outbreak of H1N1 flu. Joe Becker, American Red Cross Senior Vice President of Disaster Services was in attendance, along with government officials, health and emergency preparedness professionals, policy makers, and business leaders.
According to Sharon Stanley, Red Cross Chief Nurse, “It’s important to remember that the Red Cross partners at every level of pandemic planning and response, from the field at the local level, clear up through the White House like the event this week. This gives us the ability as the Red Cross response operation to have a working knowledge in order to take care of our communities in a pandemic environment.”
In addition to coordinating and planning with government and partners, the Red Cross is taking other steps to prepare. They include:
The Red Cross is also ramping up plans to provide specific services. To this end, the Red Cross will tailor it’s response from community to community depending on the needs of that specific area. During a flu pandemic, the Red Cross will:
At this time, the American Red Cross continues to monitor the current H1N1 outbreak. The most important action the public can take now to reduce the spread of the H1N1 virus is to practice healthy hygiene habits.
About the American Red Cross:
The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and counsels victims of disasters; provides nearly half of the nation's blood supply; teaches lifesaving skills; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a charitable organization — not a government agency — and depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its humanitarian mission. For more information, please visit www.redcross.org or join our blog at www.redcrosschat.org.
10 Jul 2009, 1745 hrs IST, PTI | |||||||
AIZAWL: More than 300 pigs have died reportedly of swine fever in south Mizoram's Lunglei and Saiha districts over the last week, even as health At least 177 pigs died in Buknuam and neighbouring villages in Lunglei district, while over 150 died at Laki village in Saiha district along Mizoram-Myanmar border, official sources said in Aizawl on Friday. Medical officers from Saiha, who visited Laki to conduct a spot verification, said the pigs died due to the prevailing "swine fever and not the dreaded H1N1 swine flu." District veterinary officer of Lunglei district also confirmed that 177 pigs in the district died due to swine fever that has hit the state since 1980. Earlier, more than 100 pigs died in Kolasib district of the state. The import of pigs from neighbouring Myanmar and Bangladesh is still banned. |
GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to hold a media briefing on Friday or on Monday to issue guidance about the need for a H1N1 influenza jab, a WHO spokeswoman said.
"The recommendations are still in the process of being developed," Fadela Chaib told a news briefing in Geneva, where the United Nations agency is based.
Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, would give a news briefing once the recommendations emerging from the closed-door WHO meeting on Tuesday are approved by WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.
The WHO raised its influenza pandemic alert to the highest level on June 11 in response to the worldwide spread of H1N1, a newly discovered virus strain commonly known as swine flu.
Vaccine makers such as Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline and Solvay are seeking WHO guidance about whether to ramp up production of jabs for the strain, to keep making seasonal flu vaccines, or to produce a combination.
The discovery of three isolated cases of H1N1 flu in Denmark, Japan and Hong Kong that resisted treatment with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, made by Roche and Gilead, has raised interest in a jab to prevent infection.
The WHO said earlier this week that Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 flu does not appear to be spreading in a sustained or worrisome way. All patients with the resistant variety have recovered fully, and their viruses were sensitive to treatment with the other anti-viral recommended by the WHO, the inhaled drug Relenza made by Glaxo under license from Biota.
Lived to see today's County Economic Development Zone, Binhai Industrial Park District community three groups Zhang Baojun poultry farmers, he can hardly cover up the pain of the face color. He's dead chickens to the scene, standing 50 meters away from where the chicken loop will be able to smell the taste of rotting corpses, the chicken full circle dead chickens lying dead body, dead chickens Jiguan black, extremely thin body feathers falling loose, the mouth still unknown liquid. Zhang Baojun said the other day most of the dead chickens had been buried or burned.
Zhang Baojun told reporters in February and April this year, bought a total of 14,000 chickens, as a result of expansion, and in June 6500 about the purchase, together with the later-born chicks, the two chicken farms scale to reach more than 20,000 only. Day of June 27, in which a small-scale chicken farms death, in accordance with the practice of this is a normal phenomenon, there is no need to arouse attention, nor to use chicken. But did not expect, then days later, doubled the number of dead chickens, the largest number of dead chickens in 1000 appear one day.
It is understood that the coastal counties reflected from the relevant departments to investigate the many times after. The afternoon of July 8, Lin County Coastal Fisheries Service staff provided farmers live and dead chickens autopsy samples, the main lesions observed were: fat Xinguantong edema, pericardial effusion, gastric nipple swelling cecal tonsil hemorrhage; liver there are two of about a half centimeters in diameter, the middle edge of uplift depression necrotic foci of yellow-white. Accordingly, Lin Fisheries Board staff finds that the preliminary cause of death in the Department of suspected chicken Infectious result ruled out the prevalence of viruses and the possibility of large-scale epidemic.
Binhai County, the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Monitoring staff on farms near the water reservoirs have also been sampling laboratory analysis, water quality test results for: PH value is 7.35, total phosphorus 0.0 to 82 mg / l, with a total coliforms for the 1400 / L, with a total lead to 13 0.0 mg / l, with a total cadmium for four 0:00 mg / l, water quality of surface water environmental quality standard (GB 3838 -- 2002) three types of water standards.
