German Woman With A High Fever Dies

[animatic]

H1N1 and A(H1N1) are not the same thing.

One is a common flue and the other is the 2009 Swine/Mexican flue

[webfact]

H1N1 and A(H1N1) are not the same thing.

One is a common flue and the other is the 2009 Swine/Mexicis considered asan flue

You are right but...

...in the foreign language press H1N1 is considered as swine flu as well. Just checked some web sites

And the reporting on this case is as confusing as the Thailand based reports.

So IMHO some general education on that subject is more than necessary.

Haven't seen anything educational on local TV so far except arriving "tourists" being scanned...

People tend to panic quickly ... I remember chicken flu and SARS very well.

Edited May 19, 2009 by webfact

[parryhandy]

The health ministry is right in telling people not to panic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza

according to the WHO

Typically, in a year's normal two flu seasons (one per hemisphere), there are between three and five million cases of severe illness and up to 500,000 deaths worldwide, which by some definitions is a yearly influenza epidemic.

[bartender100]

Is it not possible this was Legionnaires' disease, nobody's mentioned it.

"Legionnaires' disease can have symptoms like many other forms of pneumonia, so it can be hard to diagnose at first. Signs of the disease can include: a high fever, chills, and a cough."

[bkkjingjoe]

I think it doesn't really matter whether it was swine flu or not.

What matters is the fact how the government and the media are handling this.

Constantly publishing contradicting and misleading reports will not help to prevent the public from panicking (as intended by the officials).

The more they are trying to cover up and keep changing the facts, the more people will be concerned about the whole issue.

Just look at this thread...(and many other threads of the past 2-3 weeks ;-)

[sriracha john]

The latest reports:

German tourist died from pneumonia, not flu

The government yesterday concluded a German tourist who visited Thailand earlier this month died of pneumonia after she did not test positive for the deadly type-A (H1N1) influenza virus.

Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nopamornbodi said rumours that 65-year-old Barbel Wilhelmine was infected with the virus and became the first victim to die from it here were false.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said production of up to 4.9 billion doses of vaccines against the flu virus was possible, so that a global pandemic could be prevented.

Worldwide, the number of H1N1 cases has reached 10,000.

As for Thailand, two confirmed victims have been reported but no fatalities yet.

Yesterday's speculation that Wilhelmine's death was caused by the deadly virus caused concern in Bangkok and other cities.

The tourist entered the country on May 12 with her husband and a child and exhibited no flu symptoms.

Her family then headed to the resort town of Hua Hin in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, where they stayed until she developed chest pains and breathing difficulties on Monday.

Her husband alerted hotel staff, who sent her to San Paolo Hua Hin Hospital, which decided to refer her to a hospital in Bangkok.

However, she died on the way while the ambulance was in Samut Sakhon.

Following her death, San Paolo Hua Hin Hospital was sanitised, and its staff were ordered to wear protective masks.

Even the crew of the ambulance carrying Wilhelmine to Bangkok and her husband were undergoing examination and given medication as a precaution against possible exposure to the type-A (H1N1) virus.

In the wake of the scare, Manit told a press conference the tourist only had a lung infection and that his ministry would determine what had caused that.

At this point, the test results from the Medical Science Department and Mahidol University's Siriraj Hospital confirmed only that Wilhelmine tested negative for the new virus.

Her husband and the child will not be quarantined.

Public Health Ministry deputy permanent secretary Dr Paijit Warajit said Wilhelmine suffered from a congenital disease and was taking a drug that lowered her white blood cell count. This weakened her body's immune system, which could not prevent the infection.

Earlier, Thailand reported two confirmed cases of the new flu, both of them Thais who had recently returned from Mexico. they fully recovered after receiving anti-flu drugs.

Still, 25 other people are in quarantine in Thai hospitals under observation for suspected type-A (H1N1) flu. Four are foreigners: two from France and one each from Switzerland and the US.

-- The Nation 2009-05-20

======================================================================

Flu suspect dies of lung infection, not H1N1

A German woman who died yesterday while on holiday in Thailand tested negative for influenza type-A (H1N1), senior health officials say.

Lab results confirmed the German patient, who was first suspected to have contracted the virus, died of a lung infection not the new H1N1 strain, said Dr Paijit Warachit, deputy permanent secretary for public health.

The 65-year-old tourist arrived in Thailand with her family on May 12 and travelled to Prachuap Khiri Khan. She developed flu-like symptoms on May 16 and was admitted to a hospital in Hua Hin district two days later.

The woman had a cough, a mild fever and a sore throat. These are not typical H1N1 symptoms, doctors said. H1N1 sufferers normally come down with a high fever during the first three days of contracting the virus.

Continued:

-- Bangkok Post 2009-05-20

Edited May 19, 2009 by sriracha john

[SoiGirlHunter]

I smell a coverup in progress

they know this would demolish tourism

[plachon]

The Nation now says the woman died of the "common flu" and not (A)H1N1: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/19...al_30103061.php

I think this is another article-in-progress because the body of the article states that authorities are still awaiting results.

Dead German tourist died of pneumonia and common flu : Thai Health Ministry

The German tourist died of pneumonia and had common influenza, not Influenza A(H1N1) which hit many countries in the world, said Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nop-amornbodi.

Mrs Barbel Wilhelmine, 65, died on May 18 after developing high fever. The tourist who died of flu-like symptoms on Monday was initially tested positive for H1N1 at a lab in Bangkok, but authorities are awaiting further tests before confirming whether she had Influenza A(H1N1).

Manit told a press conference that the tourist had lung infection and his ministry would examine further what caused the lung infection.

Earlier Pol Lt Somyot Deemak, head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, said his laboratory had detected H1N1 in the woman's sample.

smells fishy... something is wrong here! Many inconsistencies

Even fishier when you notice her name...............

More holes in the story than a Thakky CNN interview

Anyway, not wanting to make light of this, I do hope that the MoH are fully transparent on this and do not try another bird flu cover-up, should a swine flu outbreak seem imminent. Actually it was the MoAC that were mostly to blame for the bird flu cover-up to be fair, not MoH.

[moe666]

I love Thaivisa it is unbelievable what some people post here. If any thing the Thais, Chinese, and afew other Asian countries learned a good lesson about being up front in reporting these things during the Sars scare.

And what does it matter what flue she died from 30,000 to 40,000 people die each year in the US from the regular flu. I wonder how many people die in Thailand from regular flu.

Stay paranoid boys it will not make a difference.

[Thai at Heart]

I love Thaivisa it is unbelievable what some people post here. If any thing the Thais, Chinese, and afew other Asian countries learned a good lesson about being up front in reporting these things during the Sars scare.

And what does it matter what flue she died from 30,000 to 40,000 people die each year in the US from the regular flu. I wonder how many people die in Thailand from regular flu.

Stay paranoid boys it will not make a difference.

Glad to see they learnt their lesson. Confused statements and hushing up the first 2 cases. Bravo.