Swine Flu Pandemic Not Over Yet, The Who Says

Thomas H. Maugh II

The New York Times

June 3, 2010

Confounding expectations, an emergency committee of the World Health Organization unanimously recommended Thursday that the H1N1 influenza pandemic remain at the highest level of the agency's alert scale, Phase 6. The committee will confer again in July to reassess its recommendation when data from the winter influenza season in the Southern Hemisphere become available.

"We're still in the pandemic," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said.

Because of sharp declines in swine flu activity around the world, many observers had expected the 15-member committee of experts, whose members are anonymous, to declare that the pandemic was in its "post-peak" phase, or even in its "post-pandemic" phase, which would mean that the pandemic was over.

But a statement from WHO Director-General Margaret Chan noted that, while "the period of most intense pandemic appears likely to have passed for many parts of the world," activity is continuing in some areas and many people remain vulnerable. The virus is most active in parts of Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, but experts fear a further outbreak.

Many critics have charged the agency with overreacting to the emergence of the virus, particularly because symptoms have generally been mild, but experts continue to warn that a small mutation in the virus could cause it to spread more rapidly or to become more lethal. To date, 18,000 deaths from laboratory-confirmed infections have occurred, but most experts think the true number is several times higher.

New Numbers for Swine Flu

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

The New York Times 

Published: March 12, 2010

About 12,000 Americans died from swine flu between its emergence last April until mid-February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated on Friday. While swine flu is still being transmitted at low levels and some people still die of it, the third wave that experts had said was possible has not emerged, and is looking unlikely. Seasonal flu activity has been unusually low this winter, suggesting that the H1N1 swine flu strain “crowded out” the usual seasonal H1N1 and H3N2 strains. Little of the third seasonal strain, influenza B, which usually arrives late in flu season, has been seen in the United States. Swine flu has infected 42 million to 86 million people, the C.D.C. estimated.

Swine Flu Poised For Third Wave

Digital News Report – While the number of swine-flu cases has been leveling-off, some health care officials are worried that the virus is poised for a third wave. There were no deaths from the H1N1 in Nevada last week, but officials in San Antonio Texas say they expect a third wave.

The vaccine is readily available, but few people are taking advantage of the opportunity to get vaccinated. Officials in San Antonio are warning citizens to not be “complacent”.

The San Antonio Express reports that Metropolitan Health District officials have seen a rise in patients with respiratory illness. Since H1N1 has been the most the most prevalent type of flu they expect most of the new samples to test positive for the disease.

“We might be seeing the early stage of what might be a third wave” of swine flu, Dr. Bryan Alsip said. “We’ll know for certain whether they are new cases of flu or RSV (the common respiratory syncytial virus) or something else … probably by the end of the week.”

CDC Says Swine Flu Now Widespread in Only 4 States

Health Highlights: Jan. 1, 2010

The Palm Beach Post - Health  

The H1N1 swine flu outbreak continues to subside in the United States, with just four states now reporting widespread cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.That's a decline from seven states reporting widespread cases last week, and a continuance of a decline in prevalence since H1N1 infections peaked in late October, with 48 states reporting widespread illness at the time. 

The four states still reporting high H1N1 activity are Delaware, Maine, New Jersey and Virginia, the CDC said. 

The agency notes that visits to physicians for flu-like illness did rise slightly over the past week, the first such rise after eight consecutive weeks of decline. Rates of hospitalization for influenza remained unchanged, although the CDC says the number of deaths linked to pneumonia and influenza did rise.

HH1N1 Swine Flu Autopsy Report Reveals Virus Injures Entire Respiratory System

Tucson Holistic Health Examiner

Mareena Turner
From; Examiner.com

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City recently reviewed autopsy findings from 34 fatal swine flu cases. All but two of the fatalities were in New York City.

Respiratory system damage

Reports showed that in fatal cases of the H1N1 swine flu, the virus causes damage to the entire respiratory system to include the lungs, trachea, and bronchial tubes. Samples of tissues from the autopsies showed inflammation of the trachea and bronchial tubes. Researchers also observed damage to the lower parts of the respiratory system, in the bronchioles. The alveoli of the lungs were also affected by the virus.

Influenza pandemic

Dr. Taubenberger from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) noted that the pattern of damage to the airways in the swine flu autopsies closely matched the earlier 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics. Evidence of severe tissue damage was observed in the lungs of both the upper and lower respiratory system. In over half the cases, secondary pulmonary bacterial infections also accompanied the H1N1 virus infection. Pulmonary bacterial infection seems to play an important role in fatal cases of swine flu. Information on the pandemic influenza can be found at www.flu.gov or NIAID’s website.

CDC: Swine Flu Vaccine Safe; No Big Problems Seen

ATLANTA (AP) -- There's no evidence that the swine flu vaccine is causing any serious side effects, U.S. health officials said, in their first report on the safety of the new vaccine. 

 

Since vaccinations began in early October, the government has been tracking the safety of the swine flu vaccine. By mid-November, about 22 million Americans had gotten the vaccine and there were about 3,200 reports of possible side effects, the vast majority for minor things like soreness or swelling from the shot.

Health officials didn't expect to see any serious problems — the swine flu vaccine is basically the same as the regular winter flu vaccine. And there weren't any signs of trouble in the tests done in thousands to find the right dose.

Still, it is “very reassuring” to see that confirmed in their first report, said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The vaccine data so far really suggests this is a safe vaccine,” she said at a press conference.     Read More

Situation Update

From: CDC (Center For Disease Control And Prevention.)

During the week of November 8-14, 2009, influenza activity decreased slightly in the United States as reported in FluView. Flu activity is widespread in 43 states. Nationally, visits to doctors for influenza-like-illness declined from last week, but are still higher than expected for this time of year. Flu-related hospitalizations and deaths have declined slightly, but are still very high nation-wide compared to what is expected for this time of year.

See More On Key Flu Indicators »

Older Americans Have Some Immunity to Swine Flu, but It’s Not Absolute

When they do contract a severe case of flu, they face greater risk

By: Katharine Greider | Source: AARP Bulletin Today | November 11, 2009

One of the most surprising characteristics of the pandemic H1N1 flu virus galloping across the country this fall is the way it tends to spare older people, striking hardest among the young. More than half of U.S. patients hospitalized with the so-called swine flu have been under the age of 25. Small studies have found that people over age 60 have some antibodies to the bug.

But, whatever immunity to H1N1 older people may enjoy, it’s definitely not foolproof. A recent report on H1N1 cases in California injects a note of caution about the risk profile of people age 50-plus. While they were less likely to get a severe case of H1N1 flu, those who did were more likely than younger people to lose that battle and die.

Published Nov. 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study examined the first 1,088 H1N1 cases in California that required hospitalization or resulted in death, the bulk of them occurring between last spring and early summer. The median age of these sick patients was only 27, with about a third under 18. While those 50 and older were underrepresented in the group, their fatality rate was 18 to 20 percent, compared with only 11 percent overall.

Read More

FDA Fights Online Flu Cure Scams

Fierce Government IT
November 8, 2009 — 6:14pm ET

The Food and Drug Administration is fighting the swine flu on two fronts--the legitimate one and the one that has cropped up that promises healing gels and powders can protect you against this panacea. It has identified 140 different products sold online that claim to prevent or treat the H1N1 virus, and has sent cease-and-desist letters to more than 75 of them, warning them to stop making fraudulent claims.

The agency has gone after sellers of gloves, inhalers, masks, shampoos, herbal extracts, air fresheners and an "ionic silver" that claims to kill every known germ, bacteria or virus within six minutes.

"In public health emergencies, there are individuals, businesses and websites that are taking advantage of public fears," Alyson Saben, deputy director of the agency's office of enforcement, told the New York Times. She added that about 80 percent of the companies that received warning letters from the FDA complied with demands to stop misleading marketing.

If they do not, the agency can start a criminal case, seize products and make third parties--Internet service providers, for example--aware that the companies are violating federal law.

N.C. Pork Producers Seeing Flu's Impact On Business

Posted: Nov. 4 11:09 p.m.
Updated: Nov. 4 11:50 p.m.

WRAL.com

Sims, N.C. — As more pigs test positive for the H1N1 virus, North Carolina's pork industry continues to take an economic hit.

A commercial hog herd in Indiana tested positive this week for the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday. Several show pigs at the Minnesota State Fair contracted the virus last month.

The name “swine flu” and misconceptions about the virus have caused a hardship for the nation's $15 billion pork industry.

“We simply were the victims of a bad name,” said Neil Strother, owner of Strother Swine Farms in Wilson County.

Strother said the H1N1 virus has scared many people away from pork products. People somehow became confused into thinking they could catch the virus from pork.

"Absolutely, complete misinformation was out there,” Strother said. 

Agricultural officials have stressed that the virus is not food-borne and that people should not fear consuming pork products.

"There has never been a case of this new pandemic, H1N1, ever being transmitted from animals to humans,” said Dr. Tom Ray, a veterinarian and North Carolina director of livestock health.  The Rest Of The Story

Swine Flu Vaccine Behind Schedule

Posted 08:32 PM ET

By:  Investors.com

 

The fed'l gov't originally promised 120 mil doses of swine flu vaccine by now, but only 13 mil have come through. Production is running several weeks behind schedule, and health officials blame the pressure on drug makers to crank it out along with the ordinary flu vaccine, and a slow and antiquated process. Clinics that managed to obtain doses of the vaccine have been swamped, and doctors are getting bombarded with calls from worried parents.

Spreading Swine Flu

By Rob Stein |

The Washington Post 

People may be able to spread swine flu even after their symptoms have subsided, according to new research.

A study of Air Force cadets who came down with the flu this summer found that a significant proportion of them were still "shedding" virus more than 24 hours after their fever and other symptoms had disappeared.

Public health authorities have been asking people to stay home from work and school for at least a day after their temperatures return to normal, in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. But the new findings, reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, raise questions about that advice. 

The new study involved some of the 1,300 basic cadet trainees who arrived at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., on June 25 for a six-week military training program. By July 6, some of the cadets began to experience flu-like symptoms, and two tested positive for the illness. The virus apparently spread during a social mixer; cases peaked 48 hours after the event and dropped off quickly afterwards.

Read More

Swine Flu Vaccination Effort Starts Monday: CDC

Sun Oct 4, 2009 11:03pm EDT
REUTERS.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Healthcare workers in Indiana and Tennessee will be among the first to get swine flu vaccines in the United States on Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Vaccination clinics are scheduled for Monday morning for staff at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee and Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis, the CDC said.

Last week, the center said the first doses of H1N1 swine flu vaccine would arrive on Tuesday. The first vaccines to administered will be AstraZeneca unit MedImmune's nasal spray.

The U.S. government has ordered about 250 million doses from five companies -- Sanofi-Aventis SA, CSL Ltd MedImmune, Novartis AG and GlaxoSmithKline. MedImmune had especially good production of the H1N1 vaccine and has been the first to make doses available.

The vaccines will trickle in at a rate of about 20 million doses a week, and officials are unsure how many Americans will actually get them. The U.S. government is providing them for free, but clinics and retailers may charge to administer them.

The picture is further complicated by seasonal flu vaccination, which started last month.

Pandemic H1N1 has been circulating since it was first identified in two U.S. children last March but it has picked up speed since schools returned from their summer break in August.

The CDC said it is not especially deadly, but it is affecting younger people than seasonal flu usually does and at a time of year when there is generally little or no influenza.

Dozens of children and at least 28 pregnant women in the United States have died from the virus and at least 100 pregnant women were sick enough with it to be hospitalized, the CDC said.

Pregnant women, healthcare workers and people with special health conditions including heart disease and diabetes are supposed to be the first to get the vaccine

Pregnant? Flu Shot May Come With Some Hassle

LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated Press

Sept. 28, 2009, 10:13PM

WASHINGTON — It's hard for pregnant women to escape the message: You're at extra risk from swine flu — it could trigger premature labor, hospitalize you for weeks, even kill you — so be among the first in line for the vaccine next month. But only about one in seven pregnant women gets a flu shot each winter.

While health officials are working hard to raise that number, repeated swine flu warnings won't overcome a key obstacle: Many obstetricians don't vaccinate. And not only are women reluctant to hunt for flu shots elsewhere, historically some pharmacists and others have been wary of vaccinating them.

“Maybe this year we can change that culture,” says Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It's not supposed to happen that you, when you are pregnant, are fighting for your life on a respirator.”

Pregnant women make up 6 percent of H1N1-confirmed deaths even though they account for only 1 percent of the population, according to the CDC. They're at least four times as likely to be hospitalized as other flu sufferers.

Vaccine is a two-for-one deal during pregnancy: It can protect not just mom but the baby, too, for the first few months after birth. That's important because flu can easily kill newborns, yet babies can't be vaccinated until they're 6 months old. 

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has no count of how many OBs offer flu vaccine, though it's still considered a minority. An extra complication: Each state's health department will decide who offers the H1N1 vaccine, aiming for locations that vaccinate the most people. Those decisions haven't been made public yet. Even if your OB requested shots, he or she may not get any, at least from initial shipments. So the CDC and ACOG are urging OBs to partner with a hospital or drugstore to guarantee their patients a shot, a message the government will reiterate Tuesday in a swine flu seminar for OBs nationwide.

Yet providers who don't routinely treat pregnant women may not understand flu's risk and the shot's safety record, says Dr. Neil Silverman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Take pharmacists, expected to be key vaccinators. Silverman gets phone calls from women who say a pharmacist won't fill a flu-shot prescription. For every patient who calls, “I know there are at least two who just say, ‘Well, OK, I'm not going to do this,' and just walk away.”

The American Pharmacists Association is urging its members to follow the CDC's pregnancy guidelines, but a few stores may still balk, says association chief of staff Mitchel Rothholz.

Swine Flu Jabs To Start

20 September 2009 | by Simone Roberts:  Pharmacy News

Pharmacists are on a list of priority patients to be given immunity to swine flu following the approval of a vaccine by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). 

The medicines regulator approved the registration of CSL's Panvax H1N1 influenza vaccine for use in adults and children 10 years of age and over on Friday.

"The human adult trials have indicated that the pandemic vaccine is similar to that of seasonal influenza vaccine with a high safety and low adverse events profile, and that only one injection is required for adults," a release from the Department of Health and Ageing said.

The TGA has not approved the vaccine for use in children less than 10 years of age, and is awaiting further data from CSL on the results of a paediatric clinical trial currently in progress. 

Following the announcement a national vaccination program will begin next week with frontline health workers, pregnant women, indigenous people, those with chronic health and other vulnerable groups the focus of the initial roll-out. The wider population will also be able to access the vaccine.

Health minister Nicola Roxon urged all adults to receive the shot.
"As a vaccine remains our best defence against the pandemic flu, the TGA's decision to approve the vaccine is most welcome," she said.

"As there is enough vaccine for all adults, I encourage people to protect themselves and their families against the pandemic flu by getting vaccinated."

The Rudd Government has purchased 21 million doses of the vaccine. State health authorities will begin delivery to immunisation providers including hospitals and GPs next week.

In Australia the pandemic flu has been associated with thousands of hospitalisations and 172 deaths. Worldwide there have been more than 3,500 deaths associated with this flu strain.

U. K. Says Swine Flu Vaccination Program To Start In Autumn

By Ben Livesey | Bloomberg News 
Monday, September 14, 2009 9:08 PM EDT

 

The U. K. government said its swine flu vaccination program will start in the autumn and will be administered by family doctors. The plan will target nine million people most at risk from complications and will reduce the number of people needing hospital and intensive care treatment, saving money for the state's health care service, it said in an e-mailed statement.

"The vaccine is the best line of defense against this virus," the government said in the statement.

Studies: Swine Flu Spreads Long After Fever Stops

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE (AP) – 48 minutes ago

SAN FRANCISCO — When the coughing stops is probably a better sign of when a swine flu patient is no longer contagious, experts said after seeing new research that suggests the virus can still spread many days after a fever goes away.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been telling people to stay home from work and school and avoid contact with others until a day after their fever breaks. The new research suggests they may need to be careful for longer — especially at home where the risk of spreading the germ is highest.

Swine flu also appears to be contagious longer than ordinary seasonal flu, several experts said.

"This study shows you're not contagious for a day or two. You're probably contagious for about a week," said Gaston De Serres, a scientist at the Institute of Public Health in Quebec.

He presented one of the studies Monday at an American Society for Microbiology conference. It is the first big meeting of infectious disease experts since last spring's emergence of swine flu, which now accounts for nearly all of the flu cases in the United States. More than 1 million Americans have been infected and nearly 600 have died from it, the CDC estimates.

It is unclear whether the new research will lead the CDC to rethink its advice on how long people with swine flu should hole up. Long breaks from school and work do not seem worth it for a virus that now seems to cause mostly mild illness, said the CDC's flu chief, Nancy Cox. Swine flu is spreading so widely now that confining the sick does less good, she said.

"We tried to have our guidance balance out all of these factors," she said. "It's just virtually impossible not to have virus introduced into settings such as schools and universities."

Doctors know that people can spread ordinary seasonal flu for a couple of days before and after symptoms start by studying virus that patients shed in mucus. The first such studies of swine flu are just coming out now, and they imply a longer contagious period for the novel bug.

Read The Rest Of The Story

Only One Swine Flu Shot Needed

Health News Forum

Posted by Michelle Mitzvie | September 12th, 2009 at 9:30 am Ethiopian Review

The U.S. National Institutes of Health says clinical trials show that the new H1N1 swine influenza vaccine could protect against the virus with just one dose instead of two as had previously been expected.
This means vaccine supplies could be available for twice as many people.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says trials show that adults who got a single dose of the swine flu vaccine were protected from the virus within eight to 10 days.
Fauci is expected to officially release the U.S. vaccine trial results at a news conference Friday.
On Thursday, the New England Journal of Medicine published two studies that also confirmed a single vaccination could protect against the virus.
Australian vaccine maker CSL Limited and Swiss Drug company Novartis conducted the studies.
Also Friday, the World Health Organization released new advice for schools to reduce the spread of swine flu.
The WHO said schools deciding to close because of an H1N1 outbreak should do so at an early stage to slow transmission of the virus.
The WHO has declared the swine flu outbreak a pandemic, and says up to two billion people may eventually be infected. It says more than 3,000 deaths related to the virus have been reported worldwide.
- VOA News

Memphis Children's Hospital Erects Tent To Handle Influx of Patients With Swine Flu

From:   The Associated Press

10:43 AM CDT, September 12, 2009

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Medical officials at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center have erected a tent to handle a growing influx of patients stricken with swine flu.

The 2,400-square-foot tent set up Friday night will allow nurses will conduct health screenings on flu patients to determine if they're in need of hospital care.

Dr. William May, chief medical officer at the hospital, told The Commercial Appeal that many people are coming into the emergency room without emergency conditions.

The hospital's emergency room, which will be replaced by one twice as big under new renovations, normally receives about 160-180 children a day. But on some days, the patient load has exceeded 350 — at least half of them being children with flu-like symptoms.

___

Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://www.commercialappeal.com

iPhone Pinpoints Swine Flu Outbreaks

Offbeat News ExaminerBroderick Perkins

If you want to steer clear of Swine Flu outbreaks, a new iPhone App will help you pinpoint problem areas and avoid other contagious diseases.

Created by researchers at Children's Hospital Boston in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, the app tracks and reports outbreaks of infectious diseases in real time, including the latest baddie, H1N1 (Swine Flu).

You'll still have to get to a social networking site to get updates on the latest Swine Flu party.

Read the rest of the story: