New Mexico
H1N1 claims 3rd young person this week
Updated: Friday, 02 Oct 2009, 8:45 PM MDT
Published : Friday, 02 Oct 2009, 3:05 PM MDT
Reporter: Crystal Gutierrez
Web Producer: Devon Armijo
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE)
Swine flu’s second wave seems to have arrived
Oct 03, 2009 04:30 AM - Toronto Star - excerpts
“The number of influenza cases in Canada is on the rise, reinforcing beliefs that the second wave of the swine flu pandemic has arrived. “The early indications are that it’s starting now and it’s expected to last a couple of months,” said Dr. Natasha Crowcroft, director of surveillance and epidemiology with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion. Canada’s chief public officer Dr. David Butler-Jones has an emergency plan to seek earlier release of the vaccine. If the rate or severity of illness becomes extreme, he could ask the federal health minister for special permission to release the vaccine before clinical trials and larger international studies are complete.
However, Butler-Jones has said he expects the virus will continue to cause only mild disease in the vast majority of cases. Even if it’s mild, it will still put pressure on hospital intensive care units and emergency departments as well as on primary-care providers. “Our health-care system runs at 97 per cent capacity. There are many hospitals that I have worked with that run at greater than 100 per cent capacity. ... There is going to be competition for those beds, even in a mild pandemic,” Gardam said.”
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/704822