Pandemic Starting?

[cigar7]

Could this be the start of a world wide pandemic? This is HOT off the press as at April 23, 2009.

TORONTO - Concurrent outbreaks of human cases of swine flu in the southwestern United States and a mystery respiratory illness in Mexico had health authorities across the continent struggling Thursday to figure out what is unfolding.

Laboratories in Atlanta and Winnipeg are looking at clinical specimens trying to determine if the mounting number of human cases of swine flu - seven and counting - in California and Texas, and an unusual explosion of severe respiratory illnesses in Mexico are pieces of the same puzzle or confusing coincidences.

Even on its own the human infections with swine flu viruses are significant enough to have experts wondering whether the world is watching the start of a flu pandemic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which earlier in the week revealed they had found two human cases of swine flu, announced Thursday that the number of confirmed cases has risen to seven. There are two clusters, a father-daughter pairing and two 16 year old boys who attended the same school.

Symptoms are similar to seasonal flu, though there are more reports of vomiting and diarrhea that is seen with regular flu. All of the cases have recovered, though one person required hospitalization. It appears none of the cases had contact with pigs.

"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's national centre for immunization and respiratory diseases.

"That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it's spreading. And we certainly don't know the extent of the problem."

Genetic sequencing done to date reveals a seemingly unique influenza A virus of the H1N1 subtype made up of a distinctive mix of swine, bird and human flu virus genes. There have been no reports of this virus in pigs, said Dr. Marie Gramer, a swine flu expert with the University of Minnesota's college of veterinary medicine.

"It doesn't seem to be very similar to anything that is currently circulating, from what I have," said Gramer, who has an extensive library of swine flu virus isolates.

The CDC said they expect to confirm more cases in coming days as contacts of the cases are checked and doctors and clinics are put on notice the CDC wants samples of flu viruses that can't be identified by standard methods.

They also cautioned they can't currently tell if the events unfolding represent something new or something that happens occasionally but which has gone unnoticed in the past.

"We have improved and intensified influenza surveillance over the past few years. So it certainly is possible that events like this occurred in the past and we simply didn't detect them," said Dr. Nancy Cox, head of the CDC's influenza division.

The first of the known cases fell ill on March 28 and the most recent developed symptoms last Sunday. Most of the cases have been children or teenagers, though two are adults. Ages range from nine to 54 years. They live in and around San Diego and in San Antonio, Tex., cities that are nearly 3,000 kilometres apart. Except for the family pairing and the school mates, there don't appear to be links among the cases.

No infections with this virus have been found in Canada, Canadian authorities said.

Nor does it seem that any cases of an unusually severe respiratory illness plaguing parts of Mexico have turned up in this country, said Dr. Danielle Grondin, assistant deputy minister for the Public Health Agency of Canada.

One person from Ontario was ill after returning from Mexico but Grondin said it seemed unlikely the illness was related to the apparent outbreak, which is affecting mainly young, previously healthy adults.

Alerts that have been sent out to health providers and public health officials in Canada say 20 deaths have been associated with the outbreak, which seems to be centred around central Mexico and Mexico City.

Grondin said Canada would issue a travel advisory warning Canadians who plan to travel to Mexico of the problem, though it was not released Thursday.

And she said the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg is testing samples from Mexico looking for the cause or causes of the illnesses. Samples were also en route Thursday to the CDC's labs in Atlanta, Cox said.

Schuchat said there is no evidence yet that what is happening in Mexico is linked to what is happening in California and Texas.

"At this point, we do not have any confirmations of swine influenza in Mexico. We are working with them in terms of understand what they are seeing clinically as well as the virus characteristics of what they're seeing," she said.

A key test will be to see if any of the samples from Mexico contain the unusual swine flu virus being found in the southeastern United States.

"It will be critical to determine whether or not the strains of H1N1 isolated from patients in Mexico are also swine flu," said Dr. Donald Low, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital.

Edited April 24, 2009 by cigar7

[sbk]

do you have a source for your news article?

[cigar7]

do you have a source for your news article?

Mystery ailment in Mexico have experts scrambling

By Helen Branswell, Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS

[robblok]

do you have a source for your news article?

Mystery ailment in Mexico have experts scrambling

By Helen Branswell, Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS

Ban all Americans from entering Asia devalute the dollar and pray it only gets the rednecks...

or just relax and see what will happen cant do anything to stop it.

[phaethon]

By Helen Branswell, Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS

News peddling agency - nobody mainstream has picked it up.

[Farma]

The CDC have taken note of the new strain.

From http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...334-954,00.html

<snip>

SEVEN people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

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 said.

"We don't think this is time for major concern around the country."

However, some experts fear this strain, or another strain, could spark a pandemic that could kill millions.

Strange mixture

Unusually, 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," Dr Schuchat said.

"It's very possible that this is something new that hasn't been happening before."

The CDC reported the new strain of swine flu on Tuesday in two boys from California's two southernmost counties.

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.

<snip>

The CDC is already preparing a vaccine against the new strain. The agency will issue daily updates at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/investigation.htm.

[Farma]

Mexico shuts schools over deadly influenza epidemic

April 24, 2009 09:46pm

MEXICAN authorities have closed all schools in the capital and central Mexico as the WHO announced hundreds of human cases of swine flu in the country, including 57 suspected deaths.

The outbreak has killed at least 20 people in the past month, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said in announcing the school closures.

"This afternoon the epidemic was confirmed by Canadian and US labs to be a new influenza virus," Mr Cordova said in a televised statement in which he urged people to avoid large crowds, shaking hands, kissing people as a greeting, or using the subway.

The Government has gathered 600,000 vacines to help protect health care workers dealing with the outbreaks, the health minister said.

The World Health Organisation said there are 800 suspected swine flu cases in Mexico and seven cases reported in the southwestern United States.

It was not immediately clear whether Mexican authorities had identified the outbreak as that of swine flu, as labelled by the WHO.

Since March 18, 13 people have died in Mexico City, four in the central state of San Luis Potosi, two in Baja California in the northwest and one in the southern state of Oaxaca, Mr Cordova said.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...5003402,00.html

[cigar7]

Death toll triples in last 48 hours

Friday, April 24, 2009 FOX news

Mexico City closed schools across the metropolis of 20 million Friday after at least 16 people died and more than 900 others fall ill from what health officials suspect is a new strain of swine flu. World health officials worried that it could mark the start of a flu pandemic.

The World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland said at least 57 have died in the outbreak, although it wasn't yet clear if this larger number of deaths was due to swine flu.

"We are very, very concerned," said Thomas Abraham, a spokesman for the agency. "We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human." If international spread is confirmed, that meets WHO's criteria for raising the pandemic alert level, he added.

Abraham said WHO on Friday raised their internal alert system, allowing them to divert more money and personnel to dealing with the outbreak. "It's all hands on deck at the moment." Abraham said.

Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said only 16 of the deaths have been confirmed to have been caused by the new strain, through testing at the government's laboratories. Samples from 44 other people who died were still being tested. The health department put the total number of people sickened at around 943 nationwide.

Cordova said samples were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, to determine whether it's the same virus infecting seven people in Texas and California. As of now, tests show the flu is a "new, different strain ... that originally came from pigs."

"We certainly have 60 deaths that we can't be sure are from the same virus, but it is probable," Cordova told MVS radio in Mexico City.

Cordova described a chilling new strain that had killed only people among the normally less-vulnerable young and mid-adult age range. One possibility is that the most vulnerable segments of the population — infants and the aged — had been vaccinated against other strains, and that those vaccines may be providing some protection.

Related StoriesFACTBOX: Swine Flu

But Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said "at this point, we do not have any confirmations of swine influenza in Mexico" of the kind that sickened seven California and Texas residents.

All seven U.S. victims recovered from a strain of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses in a way that researchers have not seen before.

Cordova also told MVS radio in Mexico City that Mexican health officials can't be sure that the deaths "are from the same virus, but it is probable."

Closing the schools kept 6.1 million students home from day care centers through high schools, and thousands more were affected as colleges and universities closed down. Parents scrambled to juggle work and family concerns due to what local media said was the first citywide schools closure since Mexico City's devastating 1985 earthquake.

Lillian Molina and other teachers at the Montessori's World preschool scrubbed down their empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol on Friday between fielding calls from worried parents. While the school has had no known cases among its students, Molina supported the government's decision to shutter classes, especially in preschools.

"It's great they are taking precautions," she said. "I think it's a really good idea."

Authorities advised capital residents not to go to work if they felt ill, and to wear surgical masks if they had to move through crowds. A wider shutdown — perhaps including shutting down government offices — was being considered.

"It is very likely that classes will be suspended for several days," Cordova said. "We will have to evaluate, and let's hope this doesn't happen, the need to restrict activity at workplaces."

Still, U.S. health officials said it's not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five in California and two in Texas have all recovered, and testing indicates some common antiviral medications seem to work against the virus.

Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe the new strain can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus. The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed U.S. cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

The U.S. cases are a growing medical mystery because it's unclear how they caught the virus. The CDC said none of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.

Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.

The virus was first detected in two children in southern California — a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County.

It's not known if anyone is getting sick from the virus right now, CDC officials said.

It's also not known if the seasonal flu vaccine that Americans got last fall and early this year protects against this type of virus. People should wash their hands and take other customary precautions, CDC officials said.

[Scott]

This sort of thing is always rather scary. And once it hits Asia, there are a lot of people to get infected.

[geriatrickid]

By Helen Branswell, Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS

News peddling agency - nobody mainstream has picked it up.

Because it wasn't on FOX, it can't be true? This isn't a surprise to most public health officials at the national, state or provincial levels and they are prepared. The emails started flying in March and at the time it was described as a respiratory illness to be followed. There was concern it might be another SARS type epidemic and a field team was in Mexico last month. (It is not and is presently considered nowhere near as deadly) As soon as American citizens were diagnosed with suspected H1N1 infections, the US/Canadian infectious disease response was activated. (Bet you people didn't know there was one, did you )

Following the devastating consequences to the Canadian economy arising from Asia's gift of SARS, the Canadian government invested millions in the micobiology lab in mosquitoville/ Winnipeg, which is why there were samples sent up to Winnipeg. As well, there will soon be an influx of migratory Mexican farm labour for the summer and the provincial health authorities will have a social ticking time bomb on their hands. Parts of rural Ontario are dependent upon Mexican farm labour. It could also lead to social issues in US border states if the Mexicans are associated with this illness and events similar to what happened to asians following the SARS epidemic in Canada occur. Civil authorities have contingency plans in place.

Here's why there is no need to panic just yet. Epidemics take awhile to grow. The health authorities are out in front on this. The early indications are that the current medications on hand can be used to treat the illness. Both the US and Canadian governments have stockpiled medications in secure warehouses for just such an event. The downside though is that the amount on hand is only sufficent to protect essential personnel to ensure that the economy keeps functioning and that medical care can be given. Mexicans do not travel much outside there country unless it is to go to Canada or the US, so the rest of the world is fairly safe for the next few months. In the event that there is a full epidemic, a travel quarantine will be imposed. However, we are a long way from that decision.

Although the early indications are that this is a virus containing multiple strains, there is sufficient lead time to prepare a vaccine and this is what the Canadian lab is working on. We're heading into the summer months and viruses don't hold up well under the hot sun, so the virus will probably settle down for the summer. By the time flu season arrives, the chances are that there will be a vaccine on hand.

People most likely to contract the illness will be those with depressed immune systems and pre existing respiratory illnesses. That means most of the population should be able to fight it off. The problems will only occur if the virus takes hold in the Mexican population and it then becomes a reservoir. The concern at this point is if it is a fast mutating virus.

The simplest prevention method is to wash your hands frequently. More effective than all the pills and potions out there. So far, there is no presence of the illness in Asia or in Thailand. Avian flu continues to be the main concern for Asia.

[Garret]

Here we go again !!!....By next week everyone in Bangkok will be wearing those masks again........

[samuibeachcomber]

Here we go again !!!....By next week everyone in Bangkok will be wearing those masks again........

but not such a stupid idea if it does spread.reports in UK press of an airline employee with symtoms coming in from flight from mexico.The problem is this virus is rapidly spreading betwen humans,unlike sars that did n't transfer to humans in a big way.Medics say the tamiflu injection sorts it out,i hope they are correct.

[chiang mai]

A few points:

It looks like this virus has been circulating in Mexico for quite some time before it caught the attention of the authorities and from reading the reader posts on the BBC web site it seems the number of deaths is actually much higher than previously reported.

It also looks as though, because of the time delay in reporting the virus, that there are now confirmed cases in at least three US locations and one in the UK (BA cabin crew off a flight from Mexico City).

Apparently Tamiflu is effective against the virus (I wonder if Thailand stockpiled any/enough).

The majority of deaths have occurred in the 25 to 45 year old population, as was the case in the last global pandemic - weakened immune systems are not necessarily a target rather overly active immune systems are which causes excess fluid build up in the lungs and subsequently pneumonia.

It's starting to look a little scary in my eyes.

By Helen Branswell, Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS

News peddling agency - nobody mainstream has picked it up.

Because it wasn't on FOX, it can't be true? This isn't a surprise to most public health officials at the national, state or provincial levels and they are prepared. The emails started flying in March and at the time it was described as a respiratory illness to be followed. There was concern it might be another SARS type epidemic and a field team was in Mexico last month. (It is not and is presently considered nowhere near as deadly) As soon as American citizens were diagnosed with suspected H1N1 infections, the US/Canadian infectious disease response was activated. (Bet you people didn't know there was one, did you )

Following the devastating consequences to the Canadian economy arising from Asia's gift of SARS, the Canadian government invested millions in the micobiology lab in mosquitoville/ Winnipeg, which is why there were samples sent up to Winnipeg. As well, there will soon be an influx of migratory Mexican farm labour for the summer and the provincial health authorities will have a social ticking time bomb on their hands. Parts of rural Ontario are dependent upon Mexican farm labour. It could also lead to social issues in US border states if the Mexicans are associated with this illness and events similar to what happened to asians following the SARS epidemic in Canada occur. Civil authorities have contingency plans in place.

Here's why there is no need to panic just yet. Epidemics take awhile to grow. The health authorities are out in front on this. The early indications are that the current medications on hand can be used to treat the illness. Both the US and Canadian governments have stockpiled medications in secure warehouses for just such an event. The downside though is that the amount on hand is only sufficent to protect essential personnel to ensure that the economy keeps functioning and that medical care can be given. Mexicans do not travel much outside there country unless it is to go to Canada or the US, so the rest of the world is fairly safe for the next few months. In the event that there is a full epidemic, a travel quarantine will be imposed. However, we are a long way from that decision.

Although the early indications are that this is a virus containing multiple strains, there is sufficient lead time to prepare a vaccine and this is what the Canadian lab is working on. We're heading into the summer months and viruses don't hold up well under the hot sun, so the virus will probably settle down for the summer. By the time flu season arrives, the chances are that there will be a vaccine on hand.

People most likely to contract the illness will be those with depressed immune systems and pre existing respiratory illnesses. That means most of the population should be able to fight it off. The problems will only occur if the virus takes hold in the Mexican population and it then becomes a reservoir. The concern at this point is if it is a fast mutating virus.

The simplest prevention method is to wash your hands frequently. More effective than all the pills and potions out there. So far, there is no presence of the illness in Asia or in Thailand. Avian flu continues to be the main concern for Asia.

[Tywais]

Topic now running in the news clippings > Swine Flu - Thailand Monitors the situation