Posted on 06/24/2009 8:04:24 AM PDT by metmom
Within minutes, six-year-old Rubjit Thindal went from happily chatting in the back seat of the car to collapsing and dying in her father's arms.
"If we had known it was so serious, we would have called 911,'' Kuldip Thindal, Rubjit's distraught mother, said in Punjabi yesterday. "She just had a stomach ache -- she wasn't even crying.''
Rubjit was pronounced dead at hospital barely 24 hours after showing signs of a fever. Later, doctors told her parents she had the H1N1 influenza virus. She is believed to be the youngest person in Canada with the virus to have died.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.guelphmercury.com ...
Long-Awaited Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine Becoming Available
Friday , October 02, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,558963,00.html
The long-awaited first vaccinations against swine flu — the squirt-in-the-nose kind — begin early next week in parts of the country, and states are urging people to be patient until more arrives.
Just a trickle of vaccine, 600,000 doses of the nasal spray FluMist, will be divided among 21 states and four large cities by Tuesday, with more small shipments to more states later in the week.
http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/100109kvue_Mexico_H1N1-cb.1d5860b03.html
Border Residents Brace For Swine Flu Outbreak
06:02 PM CDT on Thursday, October 1, 2009
By Angela Kocherga / KVUE News
As flu season starts, health authorities along the border are coordinating their response. Mexico already has as many H1N1 cases this fall as it did in the spring. Border residents are preparing for an outbreak.
Business has been brisk at McCrory’s Pharmacy in El Paso as border residents brace for the flu.
Swine flu is striking the young, not elderly, in Texas
08:26 AM CDT on Friday, October 2, 2009
By SHERRY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News
sjacobson@dallasnews.com
http://www.kvue.com/news/state/stories/100209kvue-kid-flu-eh.1d8a3cffa.html
Doctors’ offices and emergency rooms across the Dallas area have been inundated this week with sick patients complaining of flu-like symptoms.
But a closer look reveals that the patients most often are children and young adults, seeking care alongside their distraught parents.
Since the swine flu, or H1N1 virus, first appeared in Texas in April, it has seemed to target the young and not the old.
“We’re seeing very little disease in people who are 65 years and older with this particular virus,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center Dallas.
The lopsided outbreak is sending pediatricians scrambling, filling up the emergency rooms at pediatric hospitals and draining many pharmacies of child-size doses of anti-viral medication.
“Influenza always spreads very freely among children,” said Dr. John Carlo, medical director of the Dallas County health department.
“Classrooms are the highest density places for infections to spread, and children have lower immunity,” he explained. “They also have less hygienic practices and tend to stay infectious longer, which gives them more time to infect other children.”
That might explain why more than 70 percent of the confirmed swine flu cases in Dallas County have been in people under 25 years old.
So far, 52 percent of the swine flu cases in Dallas County that required hospitalization were patients 5 to 24 years old and an additional 20 percent were 4 and younger.
Normally, elderly people suffer the most severe flu symptoms and comprise 60 percent of the hospitalized cases. But this year, they are only 1 percent, according to statistics kept by the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Services.
People ages 25 to 49 made up 22 percent of the hospital cases, and those ages 50 to 64 were just 5 percent.
“Older individuals seem to have some pre-existing protection,” Carlo said. “It could have been something that previously circulated in the 1960s or 1970s.”
Kahn said he had reached the same conclusion.
“It could be that one of the viruses that circulated 60 years or so ago was immunologically similar to H1N1, so those people may have some immunity,” he said.
That’s why children will get the first doses of H1N1 vaccine, possibly as early as next week. The state health department has asked for 237,000 doses of FluMist, which will target 2- and 3-year-olds. Exactly when they will arrive is not known.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that the first 600,000 doses of swine flu vaccine were heading to 25 large U.S. cities or states, including Texas.
“I don’t think we’ll promise any doses until we actually have them in our refrigerators,” Carlo said.
As an indication of the onslaught of pediatric flu cases, the CDC also released 300,000 doses of children’s Tamiflu from the Strategic National Stockpile.
The medicine was stockpiled to protect Americans in a public health emergency, such as a terrorist attack, earthquake or flu outbreak.
On Thursday, Texas received 22,000 doses of liquid Tamiflu for children, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
The medicine may not pass muster with most parents, however.
“Some of the liquid formulations of Tamiflu will have an expiration date that may have passed,” Schuchat said. “But we want people to know that the FDA has extended the expiration dates of those courses, after careful testing.”
Doctors are prescribing Tamiflu to children with severe flu symptoms or underlying medical problems in hopes of preventing bacterial infections, pneumonia or even death.
The age discrepancy applies even to the flu’s mortality rate.
Of the five flu-related deaths reported in Dallas County, three have been children. The youngest victim was 3 and the oldest was 52.
“Children 2 and younger always get the worst flu. But we haven’t seen that many this year,” said Dr. Susanna Mendizabal, a pediatrician who works at Parkland Memorial Hospital’s Oak West community clinic in South Dallas.
Oak West’s pediatric waiting room was filled Thursday morning with crying babies and coughing toddlers and their anxious mothers.
“At some of our clinics, we’ve seen a large influx of patients, most of them pediatric,” said Jessica Hernandez, vice president over Parkland’s network of community clinics.
Parkland has had to shift physicians between its clinics to cover the rising number of pediatric cases. It also had to suspend doctor appointments to accommodate more walk-in patients who need immediate care. Two of its clinics implemented weekend hours to handle the overflow of patients.
“We are seeing so many patients that the doctors and nurses should be getting sick by now,” Mendizabal said. “But for some reason, we’re not.”
Staff writer Scott Farwell contributed to this report.
_________________
UK:
170 pupils at one Yorkshire school report swine flu symptoms
Date: 02 October 2009
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/170-pupils-at-one-Yorkshire.5699398.jp
NZ:
Health officials hold off on vaccine
NZPA September 22, 2009, 8:03 pm
http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/6089153/health-officials-hold-off-on-vaccine/
New Zealand health officials are still holding off deciding whether to start a targeted swine flu immunisation programme for frontline health workers.
Officials are waiting to hear whether the World Health Organisation (WHO) includes the pandemic influenza strain in recommendations for the 2010 southern hemisphere seasonal influenza vaccine, the Ministry of Health’s chief advisor on population health, Greg Simmons, said.
New Zealand officials were waiting on the seasonal flu vaccine make-up to be decided before making recommendations to Government, Dr Simmons told NZPA.
AMA warns of looming swine flu spike
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/23/2694259.htm
September 23, 2009
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) expects the number of swine flu cases to spike in coming weeks.
Majority of U.S. parents wary of H1N1 vaccine
Poll finds two-thirds will delay kids’ immunization or not get shots at all
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33109981/ns/health-swine_flu/
WASHINGTON - Nearly two-thirds of U.S. parents say they will hold off having their children vaccinated against the H1N1 swine flu or will not get them immunized at all, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
Weekly 2009 H1N1 Flu Media Briefing
October 01, 2009, 12:00 p.m.
http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2009/t091001.htm
Audio recording (MP3)
Glen Nowak: Thank you all for joining us today, whether you’re on the phone or here in person. Today’s update on the influenza situation in the United States will be conducted by Dr. Anne Schuchat. She’s the Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Schuchat will give us an update on the seasonal flu, H1N1flu, and vaccine supply. So I will turn the podium over to Dr. Anne Schuchat.
Anne Schuchat: Thanks for joining us for today’s press conference. I want to talk about three main things today. Where are we with flu, where are we with the antivirals, and where are we with the vaccines, particularly the H1N1 vaccines.
In terms of the disease activity right now, we expect tomorrow in our weekly update of FluView that we’ll be reporting substantial flu illness in most of the country, significant flu activity in virtually all states. Most states do have quite a lot of disease right now, and that’s unusual for this time of year. We’re able to give a little bit of an update about the H1N1 influenza disease in pregnant women. I know that’s been an interest to a lot of people. We’ve updated our numbers, and through late august, we can report that about 100 pregnant women in the United States have required intensive care unit hospitalization for H1N1 flu. Sadly, 28 pregnant women in the U.S. have died so far from the H1N1 influenza. These are really upsetting numbers, I know. And I just want to remind women and doctors and nurse midwives that antiviral medicine can be a very important treatment for pregnant women who have respiratory illness.
Chinese mainland swine flu patients near 16,000
Source: Xinhua | 2009-9-26
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=415004&type=National
THE Chinese mainland confirmed 1,387 new cases of the swine flu in the 48 hours ending 3 pm yesterday, bringing the total number to 15,968, according to the Ministry of Health.
I’ve been trying to catch up on reading this thread and have found the articles you’ve posted to contain valuable information.
I appreciate the time and effort you’ve put into getting the latest reports out to us.
There are alot of different symptoms that we should look out for.
I’m NOT an alarmist...just trying to stay informed.
Thanks, DvdMom.
Thanks , azishot . It seems like people are getting all different symptoms with this flu . I’ve read reports of terrible headaches , sinus congestion , fevers , no fevers etc..
The 1 case in which a child died had vomiting as the only symptom & no fever .
http://www.kimatv.com/news/61573627.html
Story Published: Sep 25, 2009 at 5:47 PM PDT
By Melissa Wagner Watch the story
Tamiflu Shortage For Children
Sept. 25, 2009
YAKIMA — If your kids get the flu, you might have trouble finding the right medicine. There’s a shortage of the liquid form of Tamiflu for children, forcing some local pharmacies to make their own.
Pharmacist, Terry Dahlin says he’s gotten a lot of calls asking for liquid Tamiflu for kids. “ And we have to tell them unfortunately it’s not available and we don’t know when we’ll get it again,” said Dahlin.
The demand for suspension Tamiflu went up this year due to the concern over the h1n1 flu. So the government is rationing it out to the most high risk areas. And so far, that’s not Yakima.
All the more reason to be as informed as possible.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6857758.ece#
Scottish swine flu cases double in a week : October 2, 2009
A 62-year-old woman yesterday became the 10th person with swine flu to die in Scotland. The woman, from the Forth Valley NHS area, had “significant underlying health conditions”, health officials said.The death was reported as official figures showed that the number of people believed to have contracted swine flu in Scotland has almost doubled in the past week to an estimated 13,800.
The figures mean there are now almost as many people with swine flu in Scotland as there are in the whole of England and Wales, which has a population is ten times greater. The Health Protection Authority estimates 14,000 in England contracted the infection in the last week. There have been 85 deaths from swine flu in the UK.
Freeper azishot didn’t you post that eating 4 raw garlic cloves was equal to a shot of Penicillin you heard ?
Also I was wondering if any of you knew if anyone ever tried to treat the H1N1/ swineflu with Penicillin ?
I know they treat it with Tamiflu , but I was wondering why I haven’t heard of Penicillin much with this flu ????
Good morning...
Yes, I did post that 4 crushed garlic cloves (mixed with a little honey) = 1 dose of Penicillin. This came from our DIL who is interested in natural healing as well as being an R.N.
As I recall it wasn’t used to treat H1N1 but just an FYI as to an alternative to antibiotics.
Good Morning :)
Thanks , azishot :)
Oklahoma high school football game canceled due to swine flu
Published: October 2, 2009
http://newsok.com/swine-flu-leads-to-cancellation-of-football-game/article/3405679?custom_click=rss
An Oklahoma high school is canceling a football game because of an outbreak of the swine flu.
Officials at Oklahoma Christian School in Edmond say the outbreak of the H1N1 virus at Wynnewood forced them to forfeit Friday night’s scheduled game.
Vietnam:
Southern region’s major H1N1 testing center halts tests
Last Updated: Friday, October 2, 2009 21:49:15 Vietnam (GMT+07)
http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=52840
Southern Vietnam’s main swine-flu testing facility suspended testing Thursday, said HCMC Health Department official Phan Van Nghiem, arguing that not much would change as tests could be performed elsewhere.
The Ho Chi Minh City department said Friday that test results from the city’s Tropical Diseases Hospital, Children’s Hospital No.1, and Children’s Hospital No.2 would now be officially recognized alongside those from the Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute, previously recognized as the only swine flu test authority in the southern region.
Pasteur is now waiting for more funds from the Ministry of Health and must also complete all necessary bidding procedures to buy more influenza A (H1N1) virus biological reagents, the institute’s Director General Tran Ngoc Huu said in a note sent to 20 provincial and city health departments Wednesday.
In a telephone interview with Tuoi Tre, Nguyen Huy Nga, head of the ministry’s Preventive Health and Environment Department, said the institute had told the ministry about the suspension, saying that suppliers had refused to advance the testing agents as the institute was now in debt to them.
According to Huu, the debt for vaccines and biological reagents is now worth over VND4 billion (US$224,177). But he refused to name the suppliers and would not say how many samples were currently waiting for testing.
“Now they have to pay up before buying more,” Nga said, noting that even once the debt was paid the bidding process would still be required under regulations.
The ministry has provided the institute with VND1.5 billion (US$84,066) to buy more the testing agents, according to Huu, who added that it was still unknown when tests would be resumed as new supplies would not be available until the time-consuming bidding procedures were completed.
Conflicting opinions
Huu and Nga said the halt would not affect flu treatment in Vietnam much, as the health ministry had allowed hospitals to give patients suspected of being infected with H1N1 the antiviral drug Tamiflu without awaiting test results.
But not all officials from southern preventive health centers felt the same way.
Tests can help identified new outbreaks, allowing for better control of epidemics, said Cao Trong Nguong, director of the Dong Nai Province Preventive Health Center.
The suspension may have unexpected consequences as the disease continues to spread quickly through local communities, Nguong added.
The director of a provincial hospital who spoke on condition of anonymity said that although the facility was treating for H1N1 once patients showed swine flu symptoms, it would be difficult for doctors to re-diagnose problems if patients did not respond to proper swine-flu treatment.
The Da Nang Health Department, the central region’s sole influenza A (H1N1) testing center, also announced the suspension of all tests last month as it had also ran out of biological reagents to diagnose the virus.
Ly Ngoc Kinh, director general of the Medical Treatment Department at the Ministry of Health, had previously warned that Vietnam was about to exhaust its stock of testing agents.
While it awaits new supplies that will take at least two months to arrive, the Institute of Biotechnology is cooperating with the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City to develop locally-made reagents.
However, the locally produced materials won’t be introduced before January at the earliest.
Since the disease emerged in Vietnam in March, it has affected over 9,000 people nationwide, killing 16, the latest of which died Tuesday.
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