HK:
Coroner to probe fatal swine-flu case
December 18, 2009
http://www.news.gov.hk/en/category/healthandcommunity/091218/txt/091218en05014.htm
A 24-year-old woman with human swine flu has died at North District Hospital. The case will be referred to the coroner.
She came down with a fever and chest discomfort December 9, and was admitted to the hospital December 16. Her condition rapidly deteriorated and she died at 7.46pm yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Health Protection has detected three more human swine flu strains with mutations similar to the one reported in Norway, bringing the total number of such detections to eight in Hong Kong. Of them, three patients died and one is in intensive care. The four others have recovered.
The viruses remain sensitive to antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir.
Pandemic flu straining Afghan health clinics - WHO
Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:54pm GMT
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE5BH14R20091218?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=governmentFilingsNews&sp=true
GENEVA, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Afghanistan has seen a 60 percent increase in the number of respiratory ailments this winter, with H1N1 flu adding pressure on a medical system already weakened by the war, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
“The current winter season is of great concern to health providers,” Peter Graaff, the WHO representative in Afghanistan, told a news briefing in Geneva.
He said the pandemic virus was spreading at the community level in 18 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, with a resultant jump in the official number of acute respiratory infections.
“The government has confirmed more than 942 cases but this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg when you consider the weak lab capacity in the country, and the government is confirming only severe cases,” Graaff said.
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Mongolia are the first three countries which are to receive doses of pandemic vaccine in the next few weeks, the WHO said on Thursday. The U.N. agency plans to send vaccines donated by drug makers and governments to 95 poor countries in all. [ID:nLDE5BG1CU]
The country, where Taliban fighters have been battling U.S. and NATO forces since late 2001, lacks maternal and child health services as well as basic surgical care, especially in conflict-affected areas, Graaff said.
More than 150,000 infants die each year in Afghanistan and two women die every hour from complications linked to pregnancy and delivery.
“Pandemic is an additional burden for the health system in general,” Graaff said, while noting that polio vaccinations reached 95 percent of children “even in insecure districts” in the second half of 2009 in southern Afghanistan.
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