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 ...
What would be do in a Quarantine situation? Do we have water; food; provisions: stored away? Do we have cash tucked away in the event the banks close because of sick employees?
What about our city water if employees are sick? What about our utilities if employees are sick?
Oh, me!
Thanks for posting the article :)
M’sia sees 6 new flu deaths
Aug 10, 2009
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStory_414948.html
KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA’S Health Ministry says six more people diagnosed with swine flu have died, raising the country’s death toll related to the virus to 32.
Government officials have warned that unessential public gatherings might need to be scrapped to curb the risk of further infections as the country’s total fatalities from swine flu have quadrupled over the past week.
The Health Ministry reported on Monday that six more patients have died at various hospitals in recent days. Malaysia has confirmed 1,983 swine flu cases since May.
Thanks , for your 1st hand knowledge & I’m glad your friends are doing good :)
Now more article to post .....
Updated Federal Guidelines for 2009 H1N1 Influenza in Schools Offer Many Options
Guidance Says Officials Should Consider Local Needs in Making Decisions
Friday, August 7, 2009
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/08/20090807a.html
Updated federal guidelines offer state and local public health and school officials a range of options for responding to 2009 H1N1 influenza in schools, depending on how severe the flu may be in their communities.
The guidance says officials should balance the risk of flu in their communities with the disruption that school dismissals will cause in education and the wider community.
The guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was announced today at a joint news conference by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H.
The school guidance is a part of a broader national framework to respond to novel H1N1 influenza, which includes encouraging people to be vaccinated against the virus and to take other actions to avoid infection. The CDC anticipates more illness after the school year starts, because flu typically is transmitted more easily in the fall and winter.
``We’re going to continue to do everything possible to keep our children – and all Americans – healthy and safe this fall,’’ Secretary Sebelius said. ``But all Americans also have a part to play. The best way to prevent the spread of flu is vaccination. A seasonal flu vaccine is ready to go, and we should have one for the 2009 H1N1 flu by mid-October.’’
“The federal government continues to coordinate closely with state and local governments, school districts and the private sector on H1N1 preparation as we head into the fall flu season—and the upcoming school year,” said Secretary Napolitano. “Readiness for H1N1 is a shared responsibility, and the guidance released today provides communities with the tools they need to protect the health of their students and teachers.”
For an outbreak similar in severity to the spring 2009 H1N1 infection, the guidelines recommend basic good hygiene, such as hand washing. In addition, students or staff members with flu-like illness (showing symptoms of flu) should stay home at least 24 hours after fever symptoms have ended.
“We can all work to keep our children healthy now by practicing prevention, close monitoring, and using common sense,” Secretary Duncan said. “We hope no schools have to close. But if they do, we need to make sure that children keep learning.”
The guidelines also recommend schools have plans in place to deal with possible infection. For instance, people with flu-like illness should be sent to a room away from other people until they can be sent home. Schools should have plans for continuing the education of students who are at home, through phone calls, homework packets, Internet lessons and other approaches. And schools should have contingency plans to fill important positions such as school nurses.
If H1N1 flu causes higher rates of severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths, school officials could add to or intensify their responses, the guidelines say. Under these conditions, the guidelines advise parents to check their children every morning for illness, and keep the children home if they have a fever.
In addition, schools could begin actively screening students upon arrival and sending ill students home immediately. If one family member is ill, students should stay home for five days from the day the illness develops, the guidelines say.
“Influenza can be unpredictable, so preparation and planning are key,” said Dr. Frieden. “We can’t stop the tide of flu, but we can reduce the number of people who become very ill by preparing well and acting effectively.”
For more information visit www.flu.gov.
1st case of swine flu confirmed in Pakistan
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-10 20:24:16
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/10/content_11858801.htm
ISLAMABAD, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) — The first case of swine flu has been confirmed in Pakistan, a Pakistani minister said Monday.
Pakistani Federal Minister of Health Ijaz Jakarani made the remarks during a speech to the parliament house.
The minister said that Pakistan treated 25 suspected patients, and found the swine flu in one patient, local TV channel GEO reported.
He said swine flu vaccine is not available now in the market.
Israel:
‘Swine flu could paralyze children’s wards’
Aug. 9, 2009
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418563747&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The Israel Pediatrics Society has called on the government to approve more job slots for pediatric residents so that in the fall, there will be enough specialists to take care of children infected with the H1N1 (swine flu) virus.
The society chairman, Prof. Mati Berkowitz, said that the “handwriting is already on the wall” and that the severe shortage of hospital pediatricians would be even worse in the fall and winter, when more children and youths are expected to suffer from complications of the new flu strain. Berkowitz said whole pediatric departments could “collapse” in the next few months.
The Health Ministry said last week that it had official estimates of 700 young people who might die in 2010 from complications of H1N1. On Sunday there were 15 people, nearly all under 60, in serious condition and struggling with H1N1 flu complications in the hospitals.
So far, the official toll of people infected is 2,000, 99.9% of them mild. But the ministry has estimated that the actual number of Israelis infected with the H1N1 virus is much higher, due to people who had symptoms but did not go for testing.
The public is being urged to wash hands with soap and water regularly to reduce the risk of infection. A new ministry circular has been sent to the hospitals, reminding staffers to wash their hands with alcohol gel between patients, as frequent use of soap and water can dry the skin.
Anyone who feels ill and is not at high risk of complications should recuperate at home, the ministry said.
On Sunday, Deputy Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman left for a visit to the US, during which he will try to get options on H1N1 flu vaccines from various companies.
Kadima MK Rachel Adato, a gynecologist by profession, criticized the ministry on Sunday for not saying exactly where funding for the expensive vaccines - NIS 450 million if every Israeli were to get vaccinated - would come from.
She expressed her concern that the vaccines would be purchased at the expense of the agreed-upon NIS 430 million expansion of the basket of health services for 2010, which is what the Treasury wants. If so, many lifesaving and life-extending drugs will not be available to desperate patients next year, Adato said.
However, the ministry spokeswoman stated for the first time - without giving any details - that the flu vaccines would not be purchased at the expense of the health basket expansion, meaning that the Treasury would allocate a special sum to cover the costs.
Meanwhile, Magen David Adom held training sessions on Sunday in Kiryat Ono to remind its staffers how to avoid being infected with or transmitting H1N1 virus. They received lectures on how to disinfect ambulances and how to use special masks that offer better protection against viruses.
Until now, the anti-viral drug Tamiflu has been used for reducing the risk of complications in people with high-risk conditions who have already been infected with H1N1. Now, Glaxo-Smithkline has announced that it has brought its antiviral drug Relenza to Israel and deposited supplies in the Health Ministry’s storehouses.
The prescription drug should not be purchased as a preventive, as it does not protect people against the flu and could have significant side effects.
Relenza comes in a round disk, with four “bubbles” of powder and a plastic inhalation device introduced via the mouth.
Commentary
Rising Death Toll Linked to Tamiflu Resistant Pandemic H1N1?
Recombinomics Commentary 18:24
August 10, 2009
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/08091001/H274Y_Toll.html
Both patients have not been drug and patients receiving drugs to prevent Found before symptom
The above translation describing the patient in Thailand with Tamiflu resistant pandemic H1N1 indicates the resistance was not linked to Tamiflu usage by the patient. Other reports indicated the patient has recovered and the resistance was discovered through routine surveillance of collected samples.
These results are similar to the San Francisco patient who was tested in Hong Kong. Sequencing of her sample, A/Hong Kong/2369/2009 had H274Y, even though the patient recovered without Tamiflu treatment.
Those results were similar to a patient in Singapore, who developed symptoms while en route from Honolulu, with a stopover in Tokyo. She was the third confirmed case in Singapore, and her case was also mild. She arrived on May 26, tested positive on May 28, and was discharged on May 31. The detailed report at the MOH website did not indicate she was treated with Tamiflu. Her sample, A/Singapore/57/2009 also had H274Y, but was distinct from the Hong Kong sequence.
Thus, the above examples from Thailand, Hong Kong ex-San Francisco, and Singapore ex-Honolulu, appear to involve distinct evolutionarily fit pandemic H1N1 with H274Y.
This is also likely to be true for another patient (63F) from Hunan China. Her sample, was collected on June 13, and the sequence, A/Hunan/SWL3/2009 also had H274Y. The delay between the release of the sequence and the collection date also suggests this sequence was created during routine surveillance and the patient (who was likely to have been a traveler and one of the first confirmed cases in Hunan) was also not taking Tamiflu. This sequence was also distinct, indicating an independent introduction.
Some have suggested that the identification of H274Y is due to expected random mutation selected by the Tamiflu treatment. However, the development of resistance during treatment is rare. There are examples of cases in children in Japan involving sub-optimal dosing, but in those case resistance was linked to changes at a variety of positions and the resistance was limited to the patients being treated.
However, there is no indication that the above cases were treated with Tamiflu. Moreover, there have no reports of resistance in a patient undergoing treatment for a pandemic H1N1 infection. All other examples of resistance involved patients who developed symptoms while on prophylactic Tamiflu. Thus, these patients were asymptomatic when prophylactic treatment began, and when they developed symptoms, samples were collected and the sequence with H274Y was identified. Although such H274Y positive sequences from Quebec and Tokushima have not been released, each of the other sequences (A/Denmark/528/2009, A/Yamaguchi/22/2009, A/Osaka/180/2009) have H274Y and also signaled independent introductions.
Thus, the H274Y in pandemic H1N1 is similar to H274Y in seasonal H1N1, which involved multiple introductions due to recombination and genetic hitchhiking, raising concerns that the level of H274Y is markedly higher than reported. Evolutionarily fit H274Y is circulating in mild cases were are being sequenced on a delayed basis at best, or it is circulating at a mixture, and detected in prophylactic patients when they develop symptoms.
These data raise concerns that at risk patients with H274Y are being treated with Tamiflu, leading to an increase in hospitalizations and deaths, which have been on the rise worldwide in recent weeks .
Thus, more aggressive and timely testing of mild cases as well as samples collected after patients fail to respond to Tamiflu treatment would be useful.
2nd wave of swine flu on way
By Rob Stein The Washington Post
August 10, 2009 - 12:00 am
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090810/NEWS03/908100321/1013/NEWS03
Arkansas
Swine Flu Vaccine Due This Fall; State Won’t Report New Cases
posted 08/10/09 5:34 pm
http://www.katv.com/news/stories/0809/648374.html
Little Rock - A vaccine for swine flu should be available in Arkansas by this fall, health officials said Monday in the wake of the state’s first confirmed death from the H1N1 virus.
The state Department of Health confirmed the death reported Saturday by Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper. Health officials did not release details Monday, although Camper told media outlets over the weekend the victim was a woman.
1ST DEATH & ARKANSAS WON’T REPORT NEW CASES ....
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/810/2?rss=1
Bird Flu Virus a Possible Trigger for Parkinson’s
By Greg Miller
ScienceNOW Daily News
10 August 2009
Decades after the 1918 influenza pandemic, epidemiologists noted an uptick in the number of people with diminished mobility and other neurological symptoms reminiscent of Parkinson’s disease. But despite this and other hints, the idea that viruses can trigger neurodegenerative disease has remained controversial. Now researchers report new evidence for such a link: Mice infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus lose the same dopamine-releasing neurons that are destroyed by Parkinson’s disease.
The new study was inspired in part by video footage of chickens, geese, and ducks collected in Laos by researchers working with the World Health Organization’s surveillance program, says senior author Richard Smeyne, a developmental neurobiologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. “The birds looked like they had Parkinson’s disease,” Smeyne says. “They were tremoring, falling side to side, and having difficulty with movements.” So far there have been no reports of Parkinson’s disease in human survivors of the H5N1 flu, Smeyne says, but because only a few years have passed since the first cases were reported, it’s too early to know whether those infected are at increased risk.
To learn more about the virus’s effect on the nervous system, Smeyne and colleagues sprayed a solution containing the virus into the noses of 225 mice. All of the mice developed tremors and movement difficulties. Using an antibody that binds and labels a specific viral protein, the researchers tracked the virus as it first infected nerves in the gut 2 or 3 days after the nasal spray and then successively appeared in the brain stem and midbrain and ultimately infected much of the rest of the brain within 10 days. By 21 days, mice had cleared the virus. But at the end of the 90-day study, the brain regions that had been infected still exhibited signs of inflammation and had elevated levels of phosphorylated alpha-synuclein, the main ingredient in the abnormal clumps of protein that are a hallmark of Parkinson’s and certain other neurodegenerative diseases, the researchers report online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers also report that the number of dopamine-releasing neurons in the substantia nigra—the neurons that die off in Parkinson’s disease—declined by 17% in the infected mice.
Smeyne notes that 17% is a small reduction compared with the 70% or so loss of dopamine neurons in people with full-blown Parkinson’s disease. He suspects that H5N1 infection alone is insufficient to cause Parkinson’s, but it may make the brain more susceptible, especially in combination with other factors, such as unlucky genetics, another environmental trigger, or simply old age.
“It’s a very exciting paper,” says Malú Tansey, a neuroscientist who studies inflammation and neurodegenerative disease at Emory University in Atlanta. Tansey says Smeyne’s team has provided compelling evidence that the virus can sneak into the brain via the peripheral nervous system and that it plays a role in killing dopamine neurons. That said, she doesn’t see the findings as cause for panic. “I don’t think people should be overly concerned if they’re exposed to avian flu virus that they’re going to get Parkinson’s disease,” Tansey says. “But it should prompt [more] investigators to reexamine inflammation as a potential contributing factor to neurodegenerative disease.”
ping
Yah Larousse2, there’s an obvious void now that exists between the opinions of real medical professionals and the Government and it’s agencies, I wonder why!
http://nutritionwonderland.com/2009/01/obesity-virus/
Obesity Caused by a Viral Infection
thanks for posting that :)
From various sources I’ve read, the H1N1 vaccination will mutate within people. That is one of the reasons that most recommended treatments such as Tamiflu, etc. will not be affective.
If people survive the H1N1, they will have worse than Parkinson’s.
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 4:44 am Post subject:
Swine Flu turning into an epidemic in Iceland
11. Aug 2009 - 09:23
landlaeknir.is
http://www.pressan.is/News/ReadIcelandicNews/swine-flu-turning-into-an-epidemic-in-iceland
101 people have now been diagnosed with Swine Flu in Iceland, of the 320,000 000 population, 55 men and 46 women.
Haraldur Briem, head of Division of Infectious Disease Control, says the flu is devoloping in a similiar way in the country as in Britain and turning into an epidemic. The disease has spread rapidly since the first occurrence in May 1. Young people from 15 to 29 are a majority of the infected, occurrences in the age group 15-19 alone are 34.
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