Swine-Flu Wave Poses Threat To Hospital ICUs, Studies Warn
OCTOBER 13, 2009
By BETSY MCKAY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125535613677080299.html
Three new international studies detailing how patients became gravely ill with swine flu reinforce concerns that U.S. intensive-care units could be severely stressed as the second wave of the disease builds through the fall and winter.
Swine flu is mild for most people, but a portion become so ill they require sophisticated medical techniques and equipment to survive, according to the studies published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some ICUs that treated the patients in the studies had trouble finding enough beds or keeping enough medication on hand.
The studies of patients in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand were reported a week after the vaccine against the H1N1 flu began being distributed in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the disease has become widespread in 37 states.
Taken together, the studies show the proportion of severely ill patients who died from H1N1 varied from 17% in Canada to 41% in Mexico. Most victims were young adults or children who had health conditions that put them at greater risk. The patients deteriorated very rapidly after entering the hospital, struck by severe viral pneumonia, and then respiratory failure, shock and organ failure. They spent prolonged periods on mechanical ventilators.
“This is the most severely ill that we’ve ever seen people,” said Anand Kumar, lead author of one of the studies and an intensive-care attending physician for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in Canada. “There’s almost two diseases. Patients are either mildly ill, or critically ill and require aggressive ICU care. There isn’t that much of a middle ground.”
The findings underscore concerns among some U.S. public health and hospital officials that the country’s intensive-care facilities may not accommodate the swell of patients in a large-scale outbreak. An advisory panel to President Barack Obama warned this summer that as many as 300,000 patients could require intensive care at the peak of the infection, occupying between 50% and 100% of all ICU beds in affected regions. Such a scenario, which the panel described as “plausible” but not a prediction, “could place enormous stress on ICU units, which normally operate close to capacity,” the panel said.
Sinovac Receives Certificate of Approval to Distribute Panflu (H5N1) Vaccine
in Hong Kong
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS100329+13-Oct-2009+PRN20091013
BEIJING, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-Asia/ — Sinovac Biotech Ltd.
(NYSE Amex: SVA), a leading developer and provider of vaccines in China,
announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sinovac Biotech (Hong Kong)
Ltd, has received the Certificate of Approval to distribute Panflu(TM) (H5N1),
its H5N1 (bird flu) pandemic influenza vaccine, in Hong Kong. The certificate
is valid through September 13, 2014 and thereafter will be renewable for
periods of five years at a time, subject to payment of the registration fee.