Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Maryland

Posted: 20 June 2009 1301 hrs

A mask placed on a statue in Mexico City.

WASHINGTON: Figures released Friday by US and Canadian health authorities show that the H1N1 flu pandemic has killed 100 people in Canada and the United States.

Eighty-seven people died from the disease in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control reported, adding that there were 21,449 confirmed cases.

The figures are a jump from the previous report on June 12, when 44 people were reported dead and 17,855 cases were confirmed.

In Canada, the world's third most affected country, health authorities reported a 13th death and 5,710 confirmed cases of A(H1N1) flu.

In Mexico, where the flu strain was first spotted, authorities reported 113 killed by the disease and the number of confirmed infections at more than 7,000.

The most recent World Health Organization data, out Thursday, showed that the H1N1 flu has infected nearly 40,000 people around the world in 89 countries and territories, causing 167 deaths since late March.

Some affected countries no longer keep track of all cases according to the UN health agency, while others do not report for each of the thrice-weekly bulletins.
- AFP/yb

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Will getting H1N1 now protect you later?

English: Illustration of antigenic shift (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

H1N1 Flu Outbreak

PARIS — The global outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1) hovering just below the pandemic threshold could provide immunity for those already infected if the virus mutates into a more deadly form, scientists told AFP.

That is what happened in 1918, when most people who fell ill with a mild Spring flu were effectively innoculated from the far more lethal strains that roared back a few months later and killed at least 40 million worldwide, according to recent studies.

The death rate among those infected during the first wave was 70 per cent lower, according to groundbreaking research published in November in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

The findings suggest that going all-out to prevent exposure to the kind of non-seasonal flu sweeping across the world today may turn out to be counter-productive in the fight to reduce mortality.

“In a scenario similar to the 1918 pandemic, we would not want to mitigate a ‘friendly’ first wave,” said Mr Cecile Viboud, a scientist at the United States National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland who contributed to the study.

Indeed, a senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that people who get — and recover from — the H1N1 flu now would be more protected from a similar virus in the future.

Mr Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s “flu chief” — said that influenza infections generally confer some degree of immunity “for a couple of years”.

“In 1918, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it would have been better to allow a first wave of infection in order to build immunity to the emerging virus while it was still mild,” said Mr Lone Simonsen, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and a co-author of the November study.

Like the early phase of the devastating pandemic nearly a century ago, the current outbreak of the H1N1 flu has spread widely but caused few deaths.

In the last two weeks, it has spread to 23 countries and infected more than 2,099 people, including 42 deaths in Mexico and two in the US. AFP

From TODAY, News – Friday, 08-May-2009