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 ...
Russia urges mass vaccination
July 20, 2009
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/World/Story/STIStory_405606.html
RUSSIA’S top health official warned on Monday that H1N1 flu was spreading within the country and urged Russians to get vaccinations.
‘I think that by the end of today we will have reported around at least five or six more (people) whom we have confirmed as sick’ with the A(H1N1) virus, Gennady Onishchenko, Russia’s public health chief, said. ‘We have registered an increase, a sharp increase in the number of individuals whom we... certify as sick,’ he said at a news conference.
Mr Onishchenko warned that infection with the virus may spike in the autumn as Russians return from holidays and urged the population to get vaccinated. ‘I advise maximum vaccination,’ he said.
The total number of H1N1 flu cases registered in Russia since late May has reached nine so far, authorities said.
All the sick Russians contracted the virus while travelling abroad, Mr Onishchenko said. He warned however that the virus was propagating further within Russia and said contamination was possible within the country.
‘The virus is now not just Moscow’s concern but also that of the regions’ outside the capital, he said.
Confirmed or suspected cases have been registered in the country’s five regions, including the cities of Saint Petersburg, Tomsk in Siberia and Perm in the Urals, he said.
‘We should be getting ready to register these cases. There’s no need to make a tragedy or panic out of it.’
He also said mass production of swine flu vaccine should be launched by September, noting Russia could produce 40 million doses.
UK:
Breaking news: Bushfield [Sports Centre] becomes ‘swine flu centre’
Published Date: 20 July 2009
By ET Staff
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/Breaking-news-Bushfield-becomes-39swine.5475635.jp
Sports activities at Bushfield Sports Centre in Peterborough have been suspended indefinitely from lunchtime today (Monday) as the building is designated as the city’s first swine flu assessment and antiviral collection point.
Summer holiday multi-sports and health and fitness activities for children that were scheduled to take place at Bushfield have been relocated to Werrington sports centre.
Normal sports activities will not be available at Bushfield until further notice.
The centre will operate as a swine flu assessment and antiviral collection centre from 8 am until 8 pm daily from tomorrow (Tuesday).
The decision is part of a planned response to the increasing number of cases of swine flu in Peterborough.
_________________
22-year-old was sent home without the right medicine
18/Jul/09
22-year-old in Norrköping cared still respirator against swine influenza.
Four days earlier, he had sought treatment - but tested negative and denied Tamiflu.
- There are probably some people in Sweden who have had the flu but did not have the right diagnosis, “says Bengt Normann, bio doctors at the county council of Östergötland.
Before 22-year-old on Tuesday sövdes to get respiratory care, he said to his girlfriend: “See you on Friday.”
But yesterday, the doctor that the value from the lungs had not been better and that they could not wake him.
- We have no idea how long he will be sövd, says Christer Liedgren, chief consultant at Vrinnevi Hospital in Norrköping.
22-year-old may have been infected by his girlfriend. Two weeks ago, the girlfriend home from a holiday to Cyprus. Unknowingly, she had brought with them pigs flu.
- The day after, I felt dull and had fever, more, it was not, “she says.
The tests showed errors
On Wednesday last week was the boyfriend 40-degree fever. He searched the emergency room.
- But we were sent home and he had some sort of respiratory medicine, says girlfriend.
Tests showed that he had not swine flu.
- I believe that these samples can fail. Those methods this is never 100 percent safe, “says Bengt Normann on bio device.
The parents still have confidence in health care:
- We have been treated completely professionally, it has been very good medical care. Both the emergency room and intensive care, they say to Expressen.
According to Health and Welfare, it is no longer possible to prevent the spread of swine flu. Instead, one should mitigate the consequences.
Health and Welfare has the World Health Organization’s pandemic alert has developed a new strategy.
- Now go entirely on how people feel. It is they who have alleged symptoms or is in a risk group who are receiving treatment. Those who are not seriously ill or have any underlying diseases may be rather general advice, “says Johan Struwe, It is the stock of medicine Tamiflu is expected to reach about 20 percent of Swedes.
- It is the doctor who assesses whether it should be initiated. While there are guidelines, “says Johan Struwe.
http://www.expressen.se/halsa/1.1643615/22-aringen-skickades-hem-utan-ratt-medicin
Swine flu did contribute to GP’s death
Dr Michael Day: Swine flu contributed to his death
20 July 2009
http://www.dunstabletoday.co.uk/dunstable-news/Swine-flu-did-contribute-to.5475581.jp
Virus was ‘significant’ factor
Swine flu did play a significant role in the death of a popular Dunstable GP, health authority bosses say.
Follow the death of Dr Michael Day, there was speculation among the national media that his death had been caused to underlying health issues.
Dr Day, 64, who had worked at the Priory Gardens Health Centre for 35 years, had tested positive for the H1N1 virus following his death at the Luton & Dunstable Hospital on July 11.
A post-mortem examination last Tuesday ruled that Dr Day died from natural causes and national newspapers subsequently reported he died from further health complications, including a blood clot on the lungs.
A statement released by NHS Bedfordshire on Friday said: “The final coroner’s report following the post-mortem into Dr Day’s death has confirmed that swine flu was a significant factor in his death.”
A memorial service is set to take place at the Priory Church in Dunstable at 4.30pm this Saturday (July 25). Dr Day’s family have asked that anyone wishing to attend does not dress in black and have asked for family flowers only.
Instead of flowers, the family have set up a charity collection in aid of Keech Cottage children’s hospice in Luton and the RNLI.
Canada’s Inuit A/H1N1 flu cases much younger than other groups
www.chinaview.cn 2009-07-18 06:10:47
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/18/content_11726907.htm
OTTAWA, July 17 (Xinhua) — The median age of the A/H1N1 flu cases among Canada’s Inuit population is significantly younger than other groups, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) reported Friday.
The median age of Inuit cases is nine years old, compared with that of First Nations (the Indian aboriginal people) at 19 years of age and that of non-aboriginal Canadians at 18, the agency said.
The report did not explain why the median age of Inuit cases is lower than other groups.
Median means the midway point between the youngest case and the oldest case.
The PHAC pointed out the Inuit people also has a higher rate of infections compared with Canada’s two other aboriginal groups. Among the country’s 10,156 confirmed cases, 151 have been identified as First Nations people, 30 have been Metis and 390 have been from Nunavut, which has a predominantly Inuit population.
Swine flu spreading rapidly in Japan: govt
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.db1a091f26713e2e37c33b0cdbed716f.461&show_article=1
Researchers discover how flu damages lung tissue
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20090719/Researchers-discover-how-flu-damages-lung-tissue.aspx
19. July 2009
A protein in influenza virus that helps it multiply also damages lung epithelial cells, causing fluid buildup in the lungs, according to new research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Southern Research Institute . Publishing online this week in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the researchers say the findings give new insight into how flu attacks the lungs and provides targets for new treatments.
In severe cases of flu, fluid accumulates in the lungs, making it difficult to breathe and preventing oxygen from reaching the blood stream. The researchers report that M2, a protein in the flu virus, damages a protein responsible for clearing fluid from the lungs by increasing the amount of oxidants, or free radicals, within the cells. Oxidants are necessary for proper cell function, but can become toxic if uncontrolled.
“Under normal conditions, oxidants play an important role, as they destroy pathogens in cells. But our findings suggest that lowering the number of oxidants, or preventing their increase, would prevent damage to the lungs resulting from the M2 protein,” said Sadis Matalon, Ph.D., vice chairman for research and professor of anesthesiology at UAB and principal investigator of the study.
The researchers say the recent outbreak of H1N1 influenza and the rapid spread of this strain across the world highlight both the need to better understand how the virus damages the lungs and the urgency to find new treatments. Influenza is a contagious disease leading to about 36,000 human deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations every year in the United States alone.
Matalon, along with co-investigators Ahmed Lazrak, Ph.D., and Karen E. Iles, Ph.D., from the Department of Anesthesiology at UAB, and James W. Noah, Ph.D., and Diana L. Noah, Ph.D., of Southern Research, injected frog eggs with M2 protein and the lung protein involved with fluid removal. Using molecular biology techniques, they removed part of the flu protein until they could isolate the segment responsible for the lung injury.
“We found that when the flu protein was shortened in length, it did not damage the lung protein responsible for removing fluid from the lungs,” said Diana Noah. “This is important information as it will enable us to design drugs that will hopefully prevent this M2 flu protein from functioning properly, making it possible for those infected with the flu to recover faster.”
Another set of experiments involved injecting intact flu proteins and their target lung proteins into frog eggs along with agents that remove oxidants. The findings of the study show that following this procedure the lung proteins were no longer damaged by the flu viruses.
The team then repeated the experiments in cells from human lungs and found the same results. “We were able to understand the basic mechanisms by which the flu damages key components of the lungs in a simple system, such as the frog eggs, and then confirm these findings in human lung cells,” said Matalon.
The researchers are hesitant to say that these results indicate a simple antioxidant, such as vitamin C, can prevent or minimize flu. “The issue is too complex and we simply can’t answer that yet,” said James Noah. “Vaccination is our leading defense against flu and we have anti-viral drugs that are effective in some cases, but flu viruses show a remarkable ability to mutate, rendering vaccines and drugs less effective. Having a new target for potential interventions opens up an entirely new approach to combating influenza.”
UK:
‘I was begging for the symptoms to pass...’:
In graphic detail, one sufferer’s account of swine flu
By Anastasia Stephens
Last updated at 12:55 AM on 19th July 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1200665/I-begging-symptoms-pass-—In-graphic-sufferer-s-account-swine-flu.html?ITO=1490
I can understand how swine flu can be deadly. A month ago I came down suddenly with an illness that floored me so severely it had me in tears and begging for the symptoms to pass.
With the Government warning of a pandemic of frightening proportions - we may be seeing 100,000 new cases of swine flu every day and up to 65,000 fatalities this winter - I sincerely hope there’s enough of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu for those who need it.
I am a fit and healthy 37-year-old journalist. I play tennis, attend yoga classes and enjoy hiking. Had I been weakened by a medical condition or was elderly, the illness which I now believe was swine flu could have easily been left me fighting for my life.
Looking back, I think I may have caught the virus travelling on a crowded Tube train to the Barbican in Central London. The carriage was warm and humid, creating the perfect environment for something like swine flu to spread.
Yet when I fell ill, it was sudden and I didn’t know the cause. It had been almost two months since the first swine flu cases had been diagnosed in Britain. I wasn’t worried about catching it - after all it hadn’t reached anything like the epidemic proportions of the past week.
Now I am certain that the illness I suffered was swine flu. A phone call to my doctor and checks against the NHS’s swine flu symptom list confirmed it.
The illness struck while I was camping in Dorset. I had gone away with friends for a weekend of walking and climbing near Swanage. The sun was shining and I felt excited about what should have been a glorious few days. So when, on the Saturday night, I came down with a sore throat and streaming nose, I resolved to battle through it.
Only I couldn’t. Within an hour of waking up the next day, I felt certain that this would be more than just a common cold. Waiting for the morning tea to brew, my throat felt absolutely raw, I was coughing and I felt drained of my usual energy.
Instinct told me to rest. Not wanting to inconvenience my friends, I told them not to worry about me and they should go walking while I lay under some blankets in a rocky shelter.
My tendency is to put on a brave face. So for a few hours I tried to convince myself I was better than I really was. But I barely had the energy or the will to move.
By lunchtime, my temperature had reached feverish levels. I know from experience that when you are really ill, you’re barely aware of what’s going on outside. The sea was sparkling in the distance and I could hear seagulls caw in the breeze, yet I hardly noticed or cared. My appetite was non-existent and I felt nauseous. All my attention was on my body, which was now sweaty and aching.
Throughout the afternoon, the nausea got gradually worse. It got to a point where I was lying almost motionless because I worried any movement would make me feel sicker.
I made myself sip some water because I knew I should not become dehydrated, even though drinking was the last thing I wanted to do.
At around 5pm, my friends returned. Seeing the state I was in, they felt terrible for having left me. They carried my bags while we walked slowly to the car. I remember longing for the three-hour journey back to London to be over quickly so I could get home to bed.
However, just ten minutes into the journey, my nausea reached a peak and I was violently sick at the roadside. I wanted to cry.
For the next few hours, I sat in the car battling the urge to vomit again. Thank goodness I fell into a slumber.
That night while lying in bed the nausea and aching felt so hideous that I couldn’t help but groan out loud. Twice during the night, I was forced to run to the bathroom, retching. That awful feeling then gave way to cramping in my stomach.
During my 20s, I had weathered some nasty stomach infections and tropical parasites while travelling in India. Whatever I was going through now, it was worse.
At around 2am, my stomach went into spasm. I couldn’t take it any more. Until then I had been managing to cope emotionally. But the ordeal was so utterly overwhelming I burst into tears on the bathroom floor and prayed for it not to get any worse.
I live alone in West London and have never felt so relieved that my retired parents live nearby. First thing in the morning, I called my 65-year-old father who came round to look after me.
It’s one of the few times in my life that I felt I needed it. For the following three days, he helped nurse me back to health with rehydrating fluids, soup and paracetamol, while Tess, the family border terrier, sat on my bed for company.
Luckily my father’s health is pretty robust as I would have hated to infect him. I am also lucky because my training as a medical herbalist has given me knowledge about viruses and how they infect.
The most contagious stage of a viral infection is when you are coughing, sneezing and your nose is streaming. I took care to sneeze into tissues, away from people and to keep washing my hands.
All in all I was bed-ridden for four days. Only on day two did I manage to drink water and keep it down. On day three, I was able to drink a little soup.
On day four, the fever began to subside and I could feel my strength coming back.
The experience left me feeling shaken. At first I thought such a nasty illness might have been food poisoning or a vomiting virus – but that didn’t fit with the sore throat and runny nose.
So I called my doctor who warned it was almost certainly swine flu, a diagnosis that would fit every symptom I suffered. It was certainly severe and I pity the thousands of other people who go through it too.
I am healthy and still fairly young, yet this tested every inch of me, physically and emotionally. I got through this without Tamiflu even if I had obtained some, it would have been too late to take it - but others will need it desperately.
This virus is spreading far faster than experts imagined and it is absolutely vital people get the help they need in time.
Sunday 19 July 2009 14.37 BST
BA and Virgin to stop suspected swine flu victims from flying
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/19/swine-flu-british-airways-virgin
I’m pinging Smokin’ Joe’s ping list & some other freepers to the above article .
Five Hospital Doctors in Costa Rica With AH1N1
http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/july/19/cr03.htm
The Hospital Nacional de Niños (Children’s Hospital) reports that five of its resident doctors are out sick with the AH1N1 flu virus. A sixth medical resident has now recovered after being infected.
The incapacitation was confirmed by the ministra de Salud, María Luisa Ávila.
The ministra said that samples are now being tested at the laboratory and it will be several days before the results are in, meanwhile the doctors are staying home to avoid risk spreading infection.
The AH1N1 has so far claimed 11 lives in Costa Rica, the worst week being this past week when on average one person a day died from the virus.
Recent article saying swine flu did contribute to GP’s death
Swine flu did contribute to GP’s death
Dr Michael Day: Swine flu contributed to his death
20 July 2009
http://www.dunstabletoday.co.uk/dunstable-news/Swine-flu-did-contribute-to.5475581.jp
Virus was ‘significant’ factor
Swine flu did play a significant role in the death of a popular Dunstable GP, health authority bosses say.
Follow the death of Dr Michael Day, there was speculation among the national media that his death had been caused to underlying health issues.
Dr Day, 64, who had worked at the Priory Gardens Health Centre for 35 years, had tested positive for the H1N1 virus following his death at the Luton & Dunstable Hospital on July 11.
A post-mortem examination last Tuesday ruled that Dr Day died from natural causes and national newspapers subsequently reported he died from further health complications, including a blood clot on the lungs.
A statement released by NHS Bedfordshire on Friday said: “The final coroner’s report following the post-mortem into Dr Day’s death has confirmed that swine flu was a significant factor in his death.”
A memorial service is set to take place at the Priory Church in Dunstable at 4.30pm this Saturday (July 25). Dr Day’s family have asked that anyone wishing to attend does not dress in black and have asked for family flowers only.
Instead of flowers, the family have set up a charity collection in aid of Keech Cottage children’s hospice in Luton and the RNLI.
Nothing that has so far been disseminated about the etiology of this virus has included sudden death as a characteristic; I wonder if they will follow up on this case?
She was talking right up to the attack, had she been developing pulmonary edema she would have had more time.
Doesn’t rule it out at all; from what we have read she could have had a bad heart valve since birth and we wouldn’t know it, nor, necessarilly would her parents.
Swine Flu Vaccine: When?
Swine Flu Vaccine Timeline: Key Decisions, Key Milestones
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090720/swine-flu-vaccine-when
July 20, 2009 — Pandemic swine flu doesn’t worry most Americans. That’s likely to change very quickly.
Well before fall 2009, most U.S. schools will open. That’s when experts warn the second wave of the pandemic may start sweeping the U.S. If that happens, the U.S. — as well as the rest of the world — needs to be prepared for the worst. A pandemic that sickens millions could close schools and businesses, halt travel, and overwhelm health care facilities.
“A pandemic is much more than a health event,” Bruce Gellin, MD, MPH, director of the National Vaccine Program Office and deputy assistant secretary of the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to coordinate U.S. vaccination efforts, tells WebMD. “Given the way a pandemic could play out, it has consequences across government and across society.”
The best defense: A vaccine to protect people from swine flu — before the pandemic peaks. Will there be a vaccine? Perhaps not that soon. And the clock is ticking away the short amount of time before federal officials, including President Barack Obama, have to make hard choices about whether — and how fast — to get swine flu shots to everyone who wants one. Or at least to those who most need one.
One choice already is made: The U.S. government has spent $1.15 billion to buy enough vaccine to immunize the entire U.S. population against the new flu. If the government makes the decision to go ahead with a full-scale vaccination program, it would be the largest, fastest vaccination program in world history.
So what will happen, and when? Here’s WebMD’s timeline, based on meetings and interviews with a number of flu experts. Warning: Flu viruses — and flu vaccine production — are notoriously unpredictable. Many things can change, even by the earliest points of this timeline.
July
Making and Testing the Swine Flu Vaccine
Pandemic swine flu vaccine is already rolling off the production lines of the five different vaccine makers supplying the U.S: 46% will come from Novartis, 26% will come from Sanofi Pasteur, 19% will come from CSL, 6% will come from MedImmune, and 3% will come from GlaxoSmithKline.
By mid-July, clinical tests of the vaccines sponsored by the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases will begin at the eight Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston; Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati; Emory University, Atlanta; Group Health Cooperative, Seattle; Saint Louis University; University of Iowa, Iowa City; University of Maryland, Baltimore; and Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
The five vaccine manufacturers will also start separate clinical tests in the U.S., Australia, and Europe. These tests will begin in July and August.
On July 29, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee will vote on who should be first in line to get the vaccine. Current indications suggest that children 0 to 4 years old will be will be at the top of the list, followed by school-age children. Children with asthma and pregnant women are also likely high-priority groups, as are critical emergency-response workers.
Preparing the Country for the Swine Flu Vaccine
Beginning with the July 9 Flu Summit, federal health officials stepped up work with state and local officials to lay the groundwork for a massive immunization effort. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has pledged $7.5 billion in preparedness funds and $350 million in direct grants to states and territories.
August
Administer Vaccine Now or Later?
By mid- to late-August, seasonal flu vaccine — the normal, three-in-one vaccine against seasonal flu — will start arriving. The CDC will recommend people get their flu shots or flu sniffs earlier than usual this year, to make way for possible pandemic flu vaccination.
If there seems to be a huge increase in pandemic flu cases, officials will be tempted to trigger vaccine delivery before safety and efficacy studies are completed.
Would that be safe? The pandemic swine flu bug is a type A H1N1 virus. One of the seasonal flu bugs is a type A H1N1 flu bug. Seasonal vaccine doesn’t protect against the new swine flu bug. But there’s a long history of safety and efficacy for flu vaccines made of H1N1 antigens, notes flu expert John Treanor, MD, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Rochester, New York.
“You might be sitting at the end of August faced with the decision to do this,” Treanor tells WebMD. “If we wait, we can’t do vaccination until November. If the pandemic flu follows the seasonal-flu pattern with the bulk of activity in January through March, fine. But if we see this second wave coming in September, we might be faced with the decision to do vaccinations without clinical data.”
An HHS advisory committee on July 17 strongly recommended that Sebelius give the green light to vaccine production by Aug. 15 — before safety and dosing tests are finished. That would mean 60 to 80 million vaccine doses could be ready by Sept. 15.
How fast pandemic flu vaccine gets to people depends on the decision whether to give the vaccine in the traditional way or with something called an adjuvant.
A vaccine includes a piece of virus that evokes a flu-specific immune response. It’s called a flu antigen. An adjuvant boosts immune responses to the vaccine and could make the antigen supply go four times as far, allowing the U.S. to share some of its vaccine with the rest of the world. Adjuvant may also elicit broader immune responses, which would be very important if the swine flu virus’s genetic code “drifts” a bit before the next pandemic wave.
Vaccinating all Americans would be an effort of historic proportions.
“This would be the largest vaccine drop that has ever happened in the world,” says Robin Robinson, PhD. Robinson is the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the HHS authority that makes sure the nation has the biomedical supplies it needs for emergencies.
“The most we’ve ever done for seasonal flu vaccine is about 120 million doses in 75 days,” he tells WebMD. “At this point, with an antigen-alone pandemic vaccine, we would see about 160 million doses in 30 days. If we go with adjuvant it could be over 300 million in 30 days — and more coming back behind it.”
Making Sure the Vaccine Is Safe
The most important question about a pandemic flu vaccine is whether it will be safe. Unfortunately, like nearly everything about flu bugs, safety can’t be guaranteed 100%.
What’s reassuring is that there’s been no safety issue with previous H1N1 flu vaccines. We take them every year. There are rare adverse events, but the benefit of vaccination far outweighs this small risk.
Safety tests will be performed on the new vaccines. But there won’t be a lot of time to see what happens in the long term. If the vaccines seem relatively safe — that is, if they don’t seem harmful in the first weeks after they’re administered — they’ll be rolled out on a massive scale. That means relatively rare side effects will be seen only after millions of people are vaccinated.
The last time the nation faced something called swine flu was in 1976. That’s when a flu of swine origin struck an army base, triggering fears of a pandemic. A vaccine was rushed into production. Manufacturers demanded that the government indemnify them against possible injury claims, making the public wary before vaccination even began.
It’s still not clear why a rare but serious neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome hit those vaccinated in 1976 at a higher-than-expected rate. But after some 44 million Americans received the vaccine, safety fears scuttled the vaccination program — and gave “swine flu vaccine” a bad name that still lingers in the American psyche.
How the public perceives the safety of the vaccine will depend on how severe the flu pandemic turns out to be, flu expert Andrew Pavia, MD, said at a June meeting at the Institute of Medicine.
“If this were a 1918-like pandemic, we could tolerate a fair degree of risk,” Pavia said. “But for this virus, our sensitivity to risk is going to be much more difficult to calibrate.”
September
One Dose or Two?
By mid-September, results from clinical studies will show the best dose for pandemic swine flu vaccine, how many doses are needed for which populations, and whether the vaccine appears safe in different populations.
If the decision was made in August to start packaging vaccine doses, vaccine will become available around Sept. 15. Early results from clinical trials will guide the decision whether to start vaccinating people. But that decision will have to be made before officials have all the information they’d like to have.
A huge question is whether it will take two doses of vaccine to immunize against pandemic flu. It’s possible that because this is a new flu, everyone will be like a small child. Children who’ve never had a flu shot need two flu vaccinations, weeks apart, to be immunized.
But it might take only one shot. Or maybe some people could get by with one shot — perhaps those who have had repeated seasonal flu shots, those who have been infected with seasonal H1N1 flu, or those born before 1957 when a different H1N1 flu circulated.
Who Will Want the Swine Flu Vaccine?
A decision will be made whether to deploy pandemic swine flu vaccine for some or all U.S. residents. If that happens, the CDC will begin an intensive campaign to persuade people at high risk of flu complications to get vaccinated. The program will have to address issues of vaccine safety in a straightforward manner. “Public trust is crucial; we risk it at our peril. If we risk public trust with bad vaccination decisions, it will take us years to recover,” Pavia warns.
“You are going to have less data than you want to make a decision on the go or no-go, but you are going to have to make it on the best available data at the time,” says Gellin. “The middle of September is where all this stuff theoretically converges. That is the point where at least we think we will have preliminary data to see how the vaccine is performing and say where are we with this epidemic and what is the situation.”
October Through December
If a vaccine has not already been rushed into use, officials will make final preparations for vaccination programs in early October. This will include a priority list of who gets the vaccine first.
By late November, the first clinical studies of pandemic swine flu vaccine will be completed. If results differ from preliminary findings, vaccination programs will be adjusted.
Early December
Even if unexpected events delay a vaccination program, most experts think vaccine will be ready by the end of December. That means huge numbers of Americans will be offered the vaccine before flu season hits its usual peak in January or February. Even if there’s already been a second pandemic wave, this will blunt new waves of pandemic illness.
But will Americans accept a vaccine that arrives after the pandemic peaked? Will safety concerns wreck the expensive program? Even the best laid plans often go awry.
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090720/swine-flu-vaccine-when
There are many news articles which show the H1N1 causes pneumonia which is leading to death . To have pneumonia in the summer ( July ) is almost unheard of .
New flu resembles feared 1918 virus, study finds
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1316618720090713
Jul 13, 2009
By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON, July 13 (Reuters) - The new H1N1 influenza virus bears a disturbing resemblance to the virus strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic, with a greater ability to infect the lungs than common seasonal flu viruses, researchers reported on Monday.
Tests in several animals confirmed other studies that have shown the new swine flu strain can spread beyond the upper respiratory tract to go deep into the lungs — making it more likely to cause pneumonia, the international team said.
The coroner’s report following the post-mortem into Dr Day’s death has confirmed that swine flu was a significant factor in his death.”
The coroner said it ...
Ping to some vaccine info (H1N1) (Thanks, DvdMom!)
Got Thermometer? Get one now. They’ve sold out in the UK
Swine Flu: Taking Care of a Sick Person in Your Home (CDC)
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