Posted on 04/26/2009 9:44:11 AM PDT by Mother Abigail
Edited on 04/26/2009 10:44:38 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
MEXICO CITY - Churches stood empty Sunday in heavily Roman Catholic Mexico City after services were canceled, and health workers screened airports and bus stations for people sickened by a new strain of swine flu that experts fear could become a global epidemic.
(Excerpt) Read more at enews.earthlink.net ...
confirmed cases
California 7 cases
Kansas 2 cases
New York City 8 cases
Ohio 1 case
Texas 2 cases
TOTAL COUNT 20 cases
bump
Ohio is unknown to me.
MA
Can FR dub this the “Mexican flu?” It emphasizes dangers of open borders and illegal immigration.
Past flu pandemics:
1918 Spanish flu
1957 Asian flu
1968 Hong Kong flu
WHO Phases — We are currently at Phase 3 (according to WHO)
from http://www.who.int/csr/disease...
In Phase 3, an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus has caused sporadic cases or small clusters of disease in people, but has not resulted in human-to-human transmission sufficient to sustain community-level outbreaks. Limited human-to-human transmission may occur under some circumstances, for example, when there is close contact between an infected person and an unprotected caregiver. However, limited transmission under such restricted circumstances does not indicate that the virus has gained the level of transmissibility among humans necessary to cause a pandemic.
Phase 4 is characterized by verified human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to cause “community-level outbreaks.” The ability to cause sustained disease outbreaks in a community marks a significant upwards shift in the risk for a pandemic. Any country that suspects or has verified such an event should urgently consult with WHO so that the situation can be jointly assessed and a decision made by the affected country if implementation of a rapid pandemic containment operation is warranted. Phase 4 indicates a significant increase in risk of a pandemic but does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a forgone conclusion.
Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.
Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5. Designation of this phase will indicate that a global pandemic is under way.
I humbly suggest the quick term “Mexiflu.”
Israeli man hospitalised on suspicion of swine flu: hospital
http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=090426110012.fak9diuk.php
A 26-year-old Israeli man has been hospitalised after returning from a trip to Mexico on suspicion of contacting swine flu, hospital officials told AFP on Sunday.
The man checked into the Laniado hospital in the coastal city of Netanya with flu-like symptoms and doctors were trying to determine whether he had contracted the potentially fatal flu strain, they said.
“He came back from Mexico on Friday night and was hospitalised on Saturday night,” a hospital spokeswoman told AFP. “He is running a high fever.”
It marks the first suspected case of swine flu reported in Israel and the Middle East.
cont.
“Anything that would be about containing it right now would purely be a political move,” said Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.
Okay, it’s better to risk death than offend...
After all, it will be us instead of others going to the camps.
Depopulation 101.
Swine Flu Is Worse in Mexico, But Why?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/world/6392808.html
By MIKE STOBBE
Atlanta: Why has the swine flu engulfing Mexico been deadly there, but not in the United States? Nearly all those who died in Mexico were between 20 and 40 years old,
and they died of severe pneumonia from a flulike illness believed caused by a unique swine flu virus. The 11 U.S. victims cover a wider age range, as young as 9 to over 50.
All those people either recovered or are recovering; at least two were hospitalized.
“So far we have been quite fortunate,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday, just hours before three new U.S. cases were confirmed.
Health experts worry about a flu that kills healthy young adults, a hallmark of the worst global flu epidemics. Deaths from most ordinary flu outbreaks occur among the very young and very old.
Perplexing problem
Why the two countries are experiencing the illness differently is puzzling public health experts, who say they frankly just dont know. It may be that the bug only seems more deadly in Mexico. And while experts believe Mexico is the epicenter of the outbreak, they are not certain if new cases are occurring or if the situation is getting worse. They also dont know if another virus might be circulating in Mexico that could be compounding the problem.
A big question is: Just how deadly is the virus in Mexico?
The seasonal flu tends to kill just a fraction of 1 percent of those infected. In Mexico, about 70 deaths out of roughly 1,000 cases represents a fatality rate of about 7 percent. The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, which killed an estimated 50 million worldwide, had a fatality rate of about 2.5 percent.
The Mexican rate sounds terrifying. But its possible that far more than 1,000 people have been infected with the virus and that many had few if any symptoms, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a prominent pandemic expert at the University of Minnesota. U.S. health officials echoed
him. In Mexico, they were looking for severe diseases and they found some.
“They may not have been looking as widely for the milder cases,” said Schuchat of the CDC. “The U.S. health agency sent two investigators to Mexico on Saturday to
help,” she said.
(more)
Presser... woman says declarions out re: emergency, but not to worry... they did the same for the inauguration.
(shakes head)
Viral gene sequences to assist update diagnostics for
swine influenza A(H1N1)
25 April 2009
WHO published a Guidance to influenza laboratories on response to swine influenza
A(H1N1) infections1. Due to the fact that it is a new reassortant virus, diagnostics has to
be updated accordingly.
The full genome sequence of the newly identified swine influenza virus
A/California/04/2009 A(H1N1) has been made available by the WHO Collaborating
Center in CDC, Atlanta, USA on the GISAID sequence database2 and has the following
accession numbers.
Further update on availability on other public sequence databases will be provided when
available.
• HA:
SequenceID: EPI176470
SequenceName: 2009712049_seg4
Length: 1701
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• NA:
SequenceID: EPI176472
SequenceName: 2009712049_seg6
Length: 1410
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• M:
SequenceID: EPI176471
SequenceName: 2009712049_seg7
Length: 972
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• PB2:
SequenceID: EPI176486
SequenceName: 2009712049_1
Length: 2280
Segment: PB2
1 http:// …. Link to the first
Proteins: N/A
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• PB1:
SequenceID: EPI176485
SequenceID: 2009712049_2
Length: 2274
Segment: PB1
Proteins: N/A
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• PA:
SequenceID: EPI176484
SequenceName: 2009712049_3
Length: 2151
Segment: PA
Proteins: PA (716aa)
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• NP:
SequenceID: EPI176482
SequenceName: 2009712049_5
Length: 1497
Segment: NP
Proteins: N/A
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
• NS:
SequenceID: EPI176483
SequenceName: 2009712049_8
Length: 838
Segment: NS
Proteins: N/A
Isolate: A/California/04/2009
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/swineflu_genesequences_20090425.pdf
I don’t like to bring this up but this kind of thing is all that the administration will need to declare a nationwide emergency and take over complete control of the country. /tinfoil hat off
A short primer on primers
How do you find out quickly if someone is infected by a particular subtype? What you do is take samples from nasal and throat swabs, then try to find fragments of RNA from the virus in those specimens. To do that, you use primers which are short segments of nucleotides that are complementary to, and will bind with, the target regions of the RNA being tested (like the corresponding halves of a zipper) and then amplify the whole thing (using an enzyme called polymerase, hence the name polymerase chain reaction or PCR) to produce enough material for identification.
The primers act a bit like fish-hooks, to fish out the tiny fragments of RNA, except that they are very specific, ie you need to know the molecular sequence of the gene you are looking for, and have the correct corresponding sequence in the primer, to be able to give a positive test.
The problem is, with a novel virus, until they have fully sequenced it, you don’t really know that you have the right primers or fish-hooks to produce a positive test. Scientists might be able to make a good educated guess, and try different primers, but false negatives are fairly frequent.
UK airline cabin crew member does not have swine flu
LONDON (Reuters) - Tests on a British Airways cabin crew member taken to a London hospital suffering flu-like symptoms have shown he does not have swine flu which has killed up to 81 in Mexico, the hospital said on Sunday.
The man was taken to Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, northwest London, on Saturday afternoon as a precautionary measure after his flight from Mexico City touched down at Heathrow.
Tests proved negative for the new type of swine flu.
A spokesman for the hospital said doctors believed the crew member could be suffering some kind of travel illness, and will remain in hospital.
Countries around the world have imposed health checks at airports as the World Health Organization warned the new flu strain, a mixture of various swine, bird and human viruses, had the potential to become a pandemic. Already several people have been infected in the United States.
The cabin crew member was the first such reported precautionary measure in Britain.
A Health Protection Agency (HPA) said it was working with the British government to review the situation in Mexico and any threat it may pose to public health in Britain.
“There is currently a very low level of flu activity in the UK,” it said on its Web site.
“The HPA and the NHS (National Health Service) have systems in place, which will alert public health authorities of any unusual strain circulating in the UK.”
There was currently no travel restrictions on those planning to visit the affected areas of Mexico or the United States, it said.
It advised anyone who has recently traveled to the affected areas and is experiencing influenza like symptoms to stay at home to limit contact with others, and seek medical advice from a local health professional.
# of laboratory confirmed cases
California 7 cases
Kansas 2 cases
New York City 8 cases
Ohio 1 case
Texas 2 cases
TOTAL COUNT 20 cases
International Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection
See: World Health OrganizationExternal Web Site Policy.
As of April 26, 2009 9:00 AM ET
Don’t you *ever* leave Nebraska?....;]
Akld students show Swine Flu symptoms
Twenty-two students from Auckland’s Rangitoto College, may have been infected with the Swine Flu, which the World Health Organisation warn could start a global epidemic.
The students, believed to be senior students, arrived back to New Zealand via Los Angeles on Saturday, after a language trip to Mexico.
Up to six have been showing flu like symptoms, but the test results won’t be confirmed until Monday.
Three teachers also accompanied the students on the three week trip.
The group of students and teachers are remaining in home isolation until preliminary test results are known and advice has been given to the families regarding infection control precautions.
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/akld-students-show-swine-flu-symptoms-2675117
I am *so* stealing that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.