Little more than a minor pandemic... I've been watching this all day.
Respiratory illness sickening visitors to Mexico
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/623074
Alberta health advisory
Apr 23, 2009 09:13 AM
David Bruser
Staff Reporter
A mysterious and "severe" respiratory illness that has surfaced in parts of Mexico is killing some and leaving others on ventilators.
The flu-like condition – health officials say some specimens have tested positive for influenzas A and B – has so far affected healthy young adults between the ages 25 and 44.
The victims were sickened in central and south Mexico and showed influenza-like symptoms that quickly progressed to "severe respiratory distress" in five days. Some health care workers have been affected.
A bulletin from Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care does not say how many have been killed or sickened, and it is not clear if any Canadians are among the victims.
Officials are saying little else, though a ministry press release adds it is not yet clear if the several cases are linked, and there is no evidence that a new strain of influenza is at work.
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500 cases reported in Mexico City
http://www.elmanana.com.mx/notas.asp?id=117125
Translated using Google from Spanish
The contagion has affected workers and employees of major public hospitals in the Capital,
such as the Juarez Hospital, General Hospital, National Institute of Respiratory Diseases, and
hospitals in the area of Tlalpan
MEXICO CITY .- At least 500 employees of the Health sector in Mexico City are infected with influenza
virus, reported Antonio Sanchez Arriaga, general secretary of the National Independent Union of Health Workers.
The contagion has affected workers and employees of major public hospitals in the Capital, such as the Juarez Hospital, General Hospital, National Institute of Respiratory Diseases, and hospitals in the area of Tlalpan, where the National Institute Cardiology, the National Nutrition Institute and the
Hospital Manuel Gea González, in addition to the Red Cross Polanco.
The union leader warned that the number of infections could triple this week not to take necessary health measures "Last Friday we learned of the infection and ask our representatives in the various hospitals who send us reports of patients, and found that the focus of infection and reached 500 partners," said Sanchez Arriaga.
The leader of the guild said that the authorities are overcome by the presence of influenza in hospitals and only palliative measures have been implemented to try to prevent further infections.
"Right now we are being vaccinated and are taking a week leave to employees who are sick, but this is already an epidemic, and again we believe that if this continues this week we could have more than 500 thousand infected," he said.
Sanchez Arriaga explained that it is essential to vaccinate personnel working in the areas of neonatology, pediatrics, gynecology and pulmonology, and who have the most potential for spreading infection in high risk populations.
(Imelda Garcia / Agency Reform)
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Seven people in U.S. hit by strange new swine flu
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN23355101
*Five new cases found in addition to two people on Tuesday
*CDC says no reason for concern yet
*Flu is unusual mixture but no deaths seen
(Updates throughout with quotes, details)
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday.
All seven people have recovered but the virus itself is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans, the CDC said.
"We are likely to find more cases," the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat told a telephone briefing. "We don't think this is time for major concern around the country."
The CDC reported the new strain of swine flu on Tuesday in two boys from California's two southernmost counties.
Now, five more cases have been seen -- all found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza. None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.
"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Schuchat said. "That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading ... We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world."
Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases.
STRANGE MIXTURE
Unusually, said the CDC's Nancy Cox, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.
"We haven't seen this strain before, but we hadn't been looking as intensively as we have," Schuchat said. "It's very possible that this is something new that hasn't been happening before."
Surveillance for and scrutiny of influenza has been stepped up since 2003, when highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza reappeared in Asia. Experts fear this strain, or another strain, could spark a pandemic that could kill millions.
H5N1 currently only rarely infects people but has killed 257 out of 421 infected in 15 countries since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
The influenza strain is an H1N1, the same family as one of the seasonal flu viruses now circulating. Now that the normal influenza season is waning, it may be easier to spot cases of the new swine flu, Schuchat said.
Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalized and all have recovered, Schuchat said.
"This isn't something that a person could detect at home," she said. The new cases appear to have somewhat more vomiting and diarrhea than is usually seen in flu, which mostly causes coughing, fever, sore throat and muscle aches.
The CDC is asking doctors to think about the possibility of swine flu when patients appear with these symptoms, to take a sample and send it to state health officials or the CDC for testing.
Cox said the CDC is already preparing a vaccine against the new strain, just in case. "This is standard operating procedure," Cox said. The agency will issue daily updates here
Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally in an average year. And every few decades, a completely new strain pops up and it can cause a pandemic, a global epidemic that kills many more than usual. (Editing by Eric Walsh)
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Human Swine Flu Spread to Texas and Likely Import from Mexico
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04...ne_Mexico.html
April 24, 2009
Now, five more cases have been seen -- all found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza. None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.
"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Schuchat said. "That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading ... We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world."
Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases.
Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalized and all have recovered, Schuchat said.
The above comments in Reuters describe several points made in today’s CDC conference call. The additional confirmed cases leave little doubt that the swine flu is transmitting human-to-human and has now been confirmed in three distinct locations in two states (see updated map), confirming sustained transmission.
The infection of classmates in San Antonio, as well as the father and daughter in California further highlight efficient transmission. The hospitalization of one patient, who had been on a ventilator, raises concerns that infections will produce a wide range of presentations.
The location of the confirmed cases in states that border Mexico, as well as media reports of pneumonia in Canadian travelers returning from Mexico, strongly suggests that the outbreak of influenza in Mexico is also swine flu.
The confirmed cases in the United States likely represent a pandemic of H1N1 swine flu. At this point, most confirmed cases in the United States have been mild and there have been no confirmed fatalities. However, in Mexico there has been a high case fatality rate among young adults, 25-44, with atypical pneumonia, which has similarities with the 1918 pandemic.
Moreover, the 1918 pandemic was composed of eight gene segments representing recombination between H1N1 seasonal flu and H1N1 swine flu.
An efficiently transmitted swine flu can lead to co-infection with H1N1 seasonal flu. Oseltamivir resistance (H274Y) has become fixed in H1N1 seasonal flu, raising concerns that recombination or reassortment will lead to Tamiflu resistance in the swine flu, which is already resistant to amantadine and rimantadine. Moreover, the existing trivalent seasonal flu vaccine will likely offer little protection.
The spread of swine flu in the United States, and likely import from Mexico, creates a major cause for concern.