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 ...
Canada releases swine flu preparedness guide
(AFP) – 17 hours ago
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jBLS2QcB1p0VU7FHzMrl6VKAImzg
OTTAWA — Canadian health authorities on Tuesday said they would begin distributing 1.2 million manuals offering pointers on combating swine flu, in anticipation of the upcoming flu season.
MD:
10th person in state dies of swine flu
Adult from Western Md. had underlying health problems, officials say
By Kelly Brewington | kelly.brewington@baltsun.com
October 14, 2009
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.fludeath14oct14,0,3816250.story
A 10th person in Maryland has died of swine flu, state health officials said Tuesday. The person, an adult from Western Maryland, had underlying health problems. As with other deaths related to the H1N1 virus, officials would not release further details.
Since the outbreak of the virus in the spring, 217 people in Maryland have been hospitalized and two children have died, one of them a 14-year-old girl with no underlying health problems.
Nationwide, 81 children have died of the swine flu, according to figures released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an analysis of the H1N1 hospitalizations in 10 states from April through August, the agency found that even healthy people are becoming seriously ill from the virus. Of the 1,400 adult hospitalizations and 500 child hospitalizations, 45 percent did not have an underlying health problem.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/health/policy/14vaccine.html?_r=1
Mandatory Flu Vaccination for N.Y. Health Workers Is Criticized
The New York Civil Liberties Union demanded on Tuesday that the state health commissioner withdraw a new regulation requiring hundreds of thousands of health care workers to get both seasonal and swine flu vaccinations.
Swine flu: Chicago to set up free clinics at six City Colleges campuses
By John Byrne
Tribune reporter
October 14, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-chicago-swine-flu-14-oct14,0,7885100.story
More on the sudden death at home of Matt Finger (39) in KY who apparently had no underlying medical conditions:
KY:
Scott County man’s death is sixth from swine flu
Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009
http://www.kentucky.com/471/story/976621.html
The Associated Press LEXINGTON, Ky. — The death of a man in the bluegrass region brings to six the number of confirmed swine flu deaths in Kentucky.
A sister of 39-year-old Matt Finger of Scott County told the Lexington Herald-Leader her brother “just wasn’t that sick” in the days before he died on Oct. 3.
Beth Butrum of Georgetown said she checked on her brother that day and he was up and about. He asked her to get him some mashed potatoes and gravy from Kentucky Fried Chicken and she found him dead when she returned with the food.
Butrum said Finger has felt ill for about 10 days before his death, but seemed to be feeling better.
The newspaper reported Finger is the first confirmed swine flu victim to die at home.
Scott County Coroner John Goble said Finger didn’t have any known underlying medical conditions.
Thank you for posting the good report.
Cleveland: Childrens hospital filled with flu patients
Maureen Kyle
Updated: 10/14/2009 8:27:32 AM Posted: 10/14/2009 7:38:29
CLEVELAND — Waiting rooms at emergency care clinics, doctors’ offices and local hospitals are busy this season with parents concerned about their child’s cough, fever and other seemingly viral symptoms.
Even though only the most serious cases get a child admitted to a hospital, the number of sick kids one local hospital sees is concerning.
“I have chronic pancreatitis, diabetes and lupus.”
Mercedes Vaughn is always in and out of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and never before has she seen nearly every room filled with kids.
“Half of this floor, the kids have the flu, so they’re not allowed out of their room.”
“The emergency room is currently seeing about one and a half to two times the number of patients that they saw at this point last year and the outpatient clinics are also very very busy,” says Dr. Phil Toltzis, an infectious disease specialist with Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.
Toltzis says only ten percent of the children actually get admitted into the hospital, only those in severe respiratory distress or extreme dehydration. Still, the beds are nearly at capacity.
So what if this pandemic gets worse?
“We’ve already made immediate plans to expand our emergency room and expand our in patient beds so we can begin to accommodate more patients.”
If one greater Cleveland area hospital fills up, all are in partnership to take on patients turned away.
“If in fact things were to become so severe, that despite those measures every hospital bed was filled, then there are a number of plans some of those would include for example stopping routine surgery so that beds that were filled by those who were not affected by the flu would become open.”
Although Dr. Toltzis doesn’t think the swine flu pandemic will get to that level, he believes there’s a chance we haven’t seen the worst.
“Its going to be tight, there’s no question about it. Its going to be the situation where we are going to sort of be walking the tight rope every day trying to make sure we’re finding the appropriate number of beds and getting children discharged who don’t require anymore in an efficient manner.”
As for Mercedes, she’s going to take all precautions to guarantee she goes home.
“Just all the germs that’s going around. I want to get my flu shot and my H1N1 shot. “
http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=123417&catid=3
3 officers in city homicide unit diagnosed with swine flu (Maryland)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/swine-flu/bal-homicideflu1014,0,5398298.story
Three officers in the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit have been diagnosed with the swine flu, though two have been cleared by doctors to return to work, the agency’s chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said this morning.
Police officials said they are taking steps to minimize an outbreak, though they caution that officers and detectives are constantly interacting with people.
“We have a high amount of exposure to the public,” Guglielmi said. “We deal with the entire city. These are things we have to be mindful of.”
Officials have given all of the roughly 3,100 officers small bottles of hand sanitizer to carry, and each office has a large container of hand-sanitizer solution. “We are doing everything we can to keep the department clean,” the spokesman said. The homicide office on the fifth floor of police headquarters on East Fayette Street, where more than 70 detectives and support staff work, has been cleaned.
On Tuesday, state officials confirmed a 10th death from the H1N1 virus in Maryland. The victim was identified only as an adult from Western Maryland. Since spring, 217 people in Maryland have been hospitalized and two children have died as a result of the swine flu.
Hong Kong reports another A/H1N1 flu death case
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/14/content_12232564.htm
2009-10-14
A 51-year-old male patient who tested positive for Influenza A/H1N1 died here Wednesday, bringing the total number of A/H1N1-related deaths to 31 in the city, Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority announced.
According to the Hospital Authority, the man had a history of Chronic Obstructive Airway Disease. He was admitted to the Accident and Emergency Department of Pok Oi Hospital due to shortness of breath on Oct. 11. The patient became critically ill on Oct. 12 and tested positive of Influenza A/H1N1 on the same day. He was certified dead at 7:50 a.m. on Wednesday.
The case has been reported to the Hospital Authority Head Office and the Center for Health Protection.
One more critical cases of confirmed A/ H1N1 flu was also reported on Wednesday, involving a 54-year-old male patient with a history of diabetes mellitus and hypertension in Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital.
Medical malpractice alleged in Málaga’s fifth Swine Flu death (Spain)
http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_23479.shtml
Oct 14, 2009
The patient’s family accuse the eight doctors who attended her of negligence in failing to test for the virus in time
The family of a 27 year old woman, D.G.S., who died at Málaga’s Hospital Civil at the end of last month have accused the eight doctors who attended her of negligence in failing to detect that she had contracted the swine flu virus. The separated mother of two had no underlying health condition and her family alleges in the complaint they have filed that her death was due to the late diagnosis and treatment of the A virus.
They believe her life could have been saved if samples had been taken to test for the virus the first time she attended the hospital’s emergency department with what they say were ‘clear symptoms’ of the flu.
The woman was sent home by casualty doctors on three occasions over a period of 2 days after being treated for what was initially diagnosed as retro-cardiac pneumonia. On her family’s insistence and her increasingly worsening condition, she was finally admitted into observation early on 15th September.
She then spent two weeks under sedation and on ventilation in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. It was while she was in ICU that Diario Sur says she was finally diagnosed with the H1N1 virus, and was immediately put on a double dose of medication. She however died on 29th September.
A judge is now investigating the malpractice complaint which EFE notes, if it goes ahead, could mean a prison term of up to four years and a ban from the medical profession for up to six years.
When my son had swine flu about 3 weeks ago, the pediatrician refused to give him the tamiflu because it only works like it’s supposed to within the 1st 24 hours (he’d had a runny nose for 3 days before he got the fever)and he said it comes with all kinds of horrible side effects to the kidneys. It also only reduces the the swine flu by one day - not worth the risk of other health issues the shot posed.
Who are you going to believe?
Schools ordered to post absence level
By: Nick Martin
14/10/2009
Education Minister Peter Bjornson has ordered school divisions to begin immediately posting online the level of absence for each school on a daily basis — either a message of no unusual absenteeism, or higher than usual absenteeism.
Bjornson’s letter sent out Tuesday does not define unusual absenteeism, nor does it make any reference to the H1N1 flu.
Bjornson announced two weeks ago that divisions would have to provide daily updates of absenteeism on their websites, but only put it in writing Tuesday.
So far in the city, only Pembina Trails School Division had been posting a daily update of school-by-school absences 10 per cent above the seasonal norms. And to date, none has had that many students absent.
That 10-per-cent-above-usual figure was previously to have triggered schools alerting their public health nurse, but Bjornson’s letter emphasizes that schools must post publicly anything above normal absences.
School divisions had been slow to respond until they got orders in writing from Bjornson, and what had been posted so far varied widely.
Interlake School Division listed all its schools and said it will indicate if any exceed 10 per cent absenteeism.
Seven Oaks School Division has a flu pandemic link on its home page, which says Seven Oaks will go public if a school exceeds seasonal norms in absences three consecutive days.
Louis Riel division superintendent Terry Borys has a note on the division’s home page — titled “Do you have ConFLUsion?” — notifying parents that LRSD won’t be posting anything until Bjornson tells educators in writing what he wants them to do.
But meanwhile, says Borys, the division has not had any confirmed cases of H1N1.
Superintendents met Sept. 23 with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, which reiterated earlier messages from the province that health authorities will handle the release of all flu information — which would not include identifying an individual school in any way.
As Borys wrote on Louis Riel’s website: “We understood that the Province (and in particular Manitoba Health) would communicate when influenza is circulating in public schools. Indeed, we were told that when we start to get cases of H1N1, that we should all avoid providing detailed information about specific student numbers or schools and give the main message that influenza has arrived, and what that means to all schools.”
But when the Free Press reported last month that school divisions would not be publicly identifying any unusual health problems at individual schools in the face of a possible flu pandemic, there was strong reader reaction demanding information.
And when Premier Gary Doer later that day went on CJOB radio and said that, as a parent, he’d want to know if there was flu in his child’s school, Bjornson announced a change in policy within a few hours.
Winnipeg, St. James-Assiniboia, River East Transcona and Seine River have been posting only the Manitoba Health messages and links that were issued months ago. Just outside the city, Sunrise and Lord Selkirk have done the same.
I having been posting swine flu articles since the beginning of May.
I know from posting over 2,000 different swine flu news articles that there is differing views .
England had a news report that Tamiflu shouldn’t be given to any children under 12 .
It is true that Tamiflu is supposed to work best within a 48 hour frame .
I think this woman who had lived if she was given Tamiflu by reading this statement below :
Flu Victim Family’s Statement
http://www.fox13now.com/news/kstu-utah-third-deaths-family-statement,0,4966333.story
On another note I did post an article where Tamiflu was given within 24 hours , & a young man still died within 3 weeks .
I’ve read report’s that Tamiflu contributed to suicide before and suicide is listed as a side effect of Tamiflu .
I’ve read personal report’s where after taking Tamiflu the person felt alot better .
I think Tamiflu has helped some people , & has hurt’s others ...
Swine flu cover up? (Spain)
http://www.theolivepress.es/2009/10/14/swine-flu-cover-up/
October 14, 2009
CONFUSION surrounds how many people in Andalucia have actually died from swine flu.
It comes after it emerged that the health authorities in Cadiz covered up the death of an 18-year-old girl in September.
The decision was taken to avoid public alarm after the girl died at Jerez Hospital, in Cadiz province.
Now, concerned expatriates are questioning exactly how many people might have died from the illness, and how many have contracted it.
Briton Vanessa Cassano, who lives in the Genal Valley said: “A lot of people are confused. Is this something to worry about or not?”
It comes after a third person was confirmed to have died from the virus in Malaga province alone.
The 46-year-old woman died at the Hospital Clinico, after spending a month in intensive care.
The Olive Press understands that numerous cases of the virus are going unreported.
As well as breaking a story about former Miss Wales, Imogen Thomas contracting swine flu, along with a friend, in Marbella, in July, a group of walkers contracted it while on holiday in the Grazalema national park last month.
The Olive Press can also reveal that the mayor of Alpandaire Gabriel Jimenez Ruiz, 44, contracted swine flu a fortnight ago.
He was rushed to the hospital in Ronda, where blood tests were taken. The illness was confirmed a few days later and it took him 12 days to recover.
The mayor said: “There could be quite a few more cases, but it is unclear how many. There was certainly a child of 11 years with it at the hospital.”
This is despite nurses and doctors at Ronda Hospital claiming unofficially that there have been no cases in the area.
A hospital employee confirmed last night: “I can´t tell you how many people have had swine flu and I am pretty sure we have no such figures available.”
Said mayor Ruiz: “It is vital that when someone dies they announce the truth. People need to know.”
The number of deaths from swine flu in Spain is believed to stand at 42, however, doubts have now been fuelled as to whether this is the correct figure.
In comparison, 90 people have died so far in the UK from the disease.
However, a Malaga health spokesman insisted that the problem was being exaggerated.
He said: “Swine flu is not a big issue. More people are actually dying from normal flu than from swine flu.”
In a government change of policy, deaths from swine flu are now officially recorded by the number of fatalities per 100,000 people as opposed to individual cases.
In a bid to further reassure the public, officials are now focussing on releasing preventative guidelines.
State reports 10th swine flu death - MD
Published 10/14/09
BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland health officials have reported the 10th swine flu-related death in the state.
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Tuesday that the victim was an adult in western Maryland who had serious underlying health conditions.
DHMH Secretary John Colmers urged people with serious health conditions to contact their doctors immediately if they experience a flu like illness.
Maryland is reporting geographically widespread influenza activity. Officials say swine flu is on the rise across the state.
Since June 1, DHMH has reported 217 hospitalizations due to swine flu related illness.
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/news/reg/2009/10/14-17/State-reports-10th-swine-flu-death.html
H1N1 toll hits 79 with death in B.C.(Canada)
http://www.calgarysun.com/news/canada/2009/10/14/11393661-sun.html
14th October 2009
OTTAWA — The H1N1 flu virus claimed another victim last week as federal health officials said Canadians will likely have to wait until November for vaccinations against the potentially deadly bug.
Alexandria Univ. interns go on strike over Swine flu (Egypt)
http://bikyamasr.com/?p=4816
14 October 2009
ALEXANDRIA: More swine flu panic is in store for Alexandria, as talk about a swine flu death in a school in Assafra spreads like wildfire. No trip on public transportation is free from a conversation about swine flu. Minibus drivers and passengers exchange opinions and rumors about the disease.
Comments like “hospitals are filled with cases” are repeated on trams and buses. Parents are worried about their children, with many sending them to school in masks. Some are hoping to make a quick pound or two and have jumped on the swine flu bandwagon.
For the first time in history, some newspaper stands are now selling masks. During the holy month of Ramadan, street vendors waited outside Kaid Ibrahim mosque after prayers, carrying boxes filled with masks to sell for one Egyptian pound each. In general, an atmosphere of panic is gripping many of the city’s citizens.
Alexandria University decided to offer its idea of a solution to combat the spread, where the fresh graduates of the Faculty of Medicine, currently training as interns in university hospitals, would be transferred to schools all over the governorate of Alexandria to spot warning signs of swine flu among pupils. Alexandria University president, Dr. Hend Hanafi, offered to “donate” the interns to fight the disease. The decision will see the 1000-plus interns relieved of their training at the university hospitals and distributed among schools of varying distance, according to their grades at graduation.
The top 180 graduates will be assigned in rotations of 40 to the Alexandria University dorms, leaving the other 140 to tend to their duties at the hospitals. The remainder will be assigned to other schools, in places as far away as Khorshed or the industrial city of Amreya.
This idea has its detractors. It does not in any way contribute to the fight against swine flu, some argue. The interns undergoing training at the university’s hospitals do not yet have a license to practice medicine and cannot practice anywhere outside these hospitals, a number of medical professionals have stated.
Furthermore, they have not received adequate training to deal with swine flu. Even if they encounter a student with lab tests proving infection with swine flu, all they can do is refer him or her to the Fever Hospital because that’s the only place where the anti-viral drug Tamiflu is (officially) available.
In response to the decision, several interns expressed their frustration online. One intern tried to explain the situation on the al-Youm al-Saba’a.
“I am an intern and I swear to God I don’t know anything about swine flu cases or how to deal with them. The only information we have is a 20-minute seminar we attended and did not understand. We are still under training and not licensed to make any decisions without consulting a resident doctor, so how are we supposed to go to schools in remote areas with no facilities to make medical decisions when there is no supervising doctor within kilometers?”
In addition to providing schools with ill-equipped trainees, the decision is harmful to both interns and hospitals. The Faculty of Medicine senior professors who head the various departments are not supervising night shifts at the hospital, and their duties are limited to teaching the students and supervising the younger staff. The interns are left to do what is affectionately called by doctors the “dirty work,” work that no one wants to do. This includes giving injections, measuring blood pressure and temperatures, setting up patients for ECGs and accompanying them to the radiology department to have the necessary investigations done for them. These duties can be performed by any nurse, but interns who want to learn the necessary basic skills needed by any doctor must endure this “dirty work,” for the sake of the patient and the betterment of his own abilities. With all the interns sitting at schools from 8 AM to 2 PM, university hospitals will be understaffed.
Nada, an intern and in the top 180 of her class, confirms this. “I went once to the university dorms and was just like a government employee. I signed in in the morning and sat down and did nothing until two o’ clock, and decided not to go again. I didn’t learn anything in my six years of college, and this is my only chance to learn and practice and make mistakes, so it’s totally unfair to throw us to far flung places for no reason,” she argued.
“Diagnosis of swine flu is based on lab tests, so what we’re asked to do is measure the temperature of students who appear to be sick, then refer them to labs for the necessary tests. That makes us totally useless, and any nurse’s assistant can measure temperature,” the intern added.
In protest, about 500 interns staged a sit in at the university in an attempt to draw attention to what they see as an unjust decision harming their future. They are on strike until Thursday, in the hope the decision will be reversed.
Not all are sympathetic to the doctors’ plight. An Emergency Room junior resident who asked not to be named said “they are just spoiled. It’s not about learning. No one learns anything in their internship anyway. They’re just objecting because they don’t want to go to schools in far away places. As for the dirty work, the junior residents can do it.”
Apart from reports in local independent press, most media coverage has not been in the doctors’ favor. On Egyptian TV, the doctors are being accused of forfeiting their duty to Egypt, after Egypt provided them with a “free education for six years so they could become doctors.”
Doctors have lashed back, saying this is a blatant distortion of the truth.
“After acquiring the necessary skills in their internship; these doctors will be distributed all over Egypt in ill-equipped health units in the most remote areas where they will be the only medical expert for miles around,” one doctor stated bluntly.
“Not to mention the salaries they get. A doctor working for the government owned Gamal Abdel Nasser hospital, after over 20 years of experience, receives an official salary that is less than 400 pounds.”
Another death in B.C. as severe Swine Flu sends 15 more to hospital (Canada)
http://www.vancouverite.com/2009/10/14/another-death-in-b-c-as-severe-swine-flu-sends-15-more-to-hospital/
By Salim Jiwa
VICTORIA, B.C. – Swine Flu has resulted in more hospitalizations in B.C. in the past fortnight than any other period since the start of the Pandemic in April.
90 People Have Now Died of Swine Flu in Venezuela
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=345610&CategoryId=10717
Deaths from AH1N1 flu virus have risen to 90 in Venezuela, where 9,805 people suspected of having the illness have been tested with 1,746 positive results, the minister of community health said Tuesday.
“Of the 90 deaths, 17 were pregnant women,” Indira Corado said, adding that in the majority of cases the baby was saved by cesarean section.
Corado also said on state television that “80 percent of the fatalities had an underlying pathology” such as diabetes or obesity.
She also said that 75 percent of those infected delayed as long as six days before seeing a doctor.
Corado’s figures correct those released previously by Health Minister Carlos Rotondaro, who last week, when he reported the deaths of 87 people from swine flu, said that until then some 1,900 cases had tested positive for the illness.
Rotondaro also said that thanks to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, or ALBA, Venezuela will receive next January a million doses of swine-flu vaccine, and that it will then be distributed free of charge.
The government of President Hugo Chavez “guarantees the medicine supply, adequate medical care and the supply of vaccines, which has been organized through ALBA,” Rotondaro said.
ALBA, based on the principle of mutual regional solidarity, was founded in 2004 by Venezuela – whose oil wealth powers the initiative – and Cuba, joined later by Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Ecuador, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.
Rotondaro did not specify whether these million doses include or are additional to the purchase of 5 million doses of vaccine for $25 million announced at the beginning of last month.
The first case of AH1N1 virus in Venezuela was detected on April 28 in a 22-year-old man who had been on a trip to Panama. EFE
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