Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Taipei

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Thai PM urges against H1N1 flu panic

Posted: 14 June 2009 1451 hrs

A Bangkok student wears mask

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Sunday urged the country not to panic about Influenza A (H1N1), after the number of cases suddenly soared and a cluster emerged in a key tourist hub.

Health authorities reported 106 confirmed cases of the A(H1N1) virus late Saturday -- which was nearly seven times the number just three days earlier and includes a number of foreigners.

Officials last week said 21 of the new infections were found among nightclub workers in the coastal city of Pattaya, who were tested after two Taiwanese tourists said on returning home they had contracted the disease there.

A Hong Kong visitor may also have contracted the virus on the southern resort island of Phuket.

"People should not panic. The death ratio for the new flu is probably lower than normal flu," Abhisit said in his weekly television programme.

He said the government was taking extra measures whenever cases were reported to confine the disease.

The government has begun a mass disinfection programme in hundreds of Bangkok's schools, while two private schools near each other in the capital were closed for a week after a student at one of them contracted the virus.

Thailand had its first reported case of A(H1N1) flu on May 12 and its first domestic case in early June but there have been no fatalities.

The UN health agency raised its global alert for the virus to a maximum six last week saying it had reached pandemic status because of its geographical spread.
- AFP/ir

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

WHO to refine flu pandemic criteria

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 27-May-2009 02:58 hrs

A commuter wears a mask at a subway station in Taipei on May 25, 2009. The World Health Organisation will consult scientists over the coming weeks to clear up the criteria needed to declare a pandemic with the new A(H1N1) flu virus, a senior official said Tuesday.

The World Health Organisation will consult scientists over the coming weeks to clear up the criteria needed to declare a pandemic with the new A(H1N1) flu virus, a senior official said Tuesday.

"We are trying to see what kind of adjustments must be made to make sure that the definitions really meet the situation," said interim Assistant Director General Keiji Fukuda.

"To do this we will be asking a number of prominent scientists and people who have a good perspective on these issues to help us think this through," he told journalists.

The move follows appeals by several countries last week for more caution before moving up a step from the current phase five alert to declaring a pandemic.

Under the current rulebook, phase six would involve a purely geographical step with sustained community spread in another WHO region to the Americas, where the virus first emerged in April.

But officials said last week they were also taking into account issues such as the severity of the virus, possible changes in the pattern of illness, its impact on poor countries or circulation in the southern hemisphere where it could mix with seasonal flu.

Fukuda said the outbreak, which has now infected nearly 13,000 people in 46 countries, including 92 deaths, was continuing to evolve.

"I think it's quite possible that it will continue to spread and it will establish itself in many other countries in multiple regions, at which time I think it would be fair to call it a pandemic at that point," Fukuda said.

"But right now we're clearly in the early times of the evolution of this virus and we'll see where it goes," he added.

The WHO is confident that enough countries are able to detect the spread of swine flu in the southern hemisphere or in poorer regions of the world, where weakened chronically ill populations might suffer more severely.

"We are comfortable that countries are doing the kinds of public health actions that they need to be taking right now," he added.

Most of the cases of A(H1N1) have been relatively mild, and the WHO has admitted that its pandemic response plan was largely designed around the more lethal H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Fukuda emphasised that the plan was largely a tool designed to ensure that countries mobilised against the threat of a new flu virus. — AFP

From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Mexico lifts flu bans, as world puzzles over virus

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 22-May-2009 05:53 hrs

Taiwanese patients wear face masks as they sit in a hospital waiting room in Taipei. Mexico City Thursday fully lifted all swine flu restrictions imposed on the sprawling metropolis, as global health authorities puzzled over the origins and severity of the A(H1N1) virus.

Antoine Flahaut, an epidemiologist and head of the School of Public Health (EHESP) in France, told AFP that the technical elements were in place to move into the pandemic phase.

"But the WHO senses that recommendations which go with that are not adapted to the situation," he explained, pointing to air travel restrictions or advice to wear surgical masks.

Health officials have also been left puzzled over why the elderly appear not to be falling ill at the same rate, with most infections and deaths reported among younger people.

A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found Thursday that older people may have some kind of immunity to swine flu.
More than 64 percent of US infections have occurred among patients between the ages of five and 24, with just one percent of flu victims aged 65 or older.
One possible explanation is that "older adults might have been in contact a long time ago with a virus related to the one that we see now," said Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for science and public health programs at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Adults might have some degree of pre-existing ... antibodies to the H1N1 virus, especially older adults over 60 or 65," she said. — AFP

From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.

Flu infection total beyond 11,000: WHO

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 21-May-2009 18:50 hrs

Taiwanese pedestrians wear protective masks as they walk near a hospital in Taipei. The World Health Organisation says 11,034 people have contracted the swine flu virus which has killed 85.

The World Health Organisation reported a rise of almost 800 in swine flu infections and five new deaths Thursday, with 11,034 people now confirmed as having contracted the disease which has killed 85.

The majority of the new cases recognised by the global body come from the four countries worst hit by the A(H1N1) virus: Mexico (three more deaths and 244 infections), the United States (two deaths, 241 infections), Canada (221) and Japan (49).

The WHO tally crossed the 10,000 barrier on Wednesday, with 41 countries now having confirmed swine flu cases. — AFP

From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Taiwan reports first H1N1 flu case

Posted: 20 May 2009 0954 hrs

Train commuters wear masks as a precaution against H1N1 flu in Kobe, western Japan.

TAIPEI - Taiwan's health authorities on Wednesday reported the island's first confirmed case of Influenza A (H1N1), in an Australian doctor who arrived by plane from Hong Kong earlier in the week.

The 52-year-old cruise ship doctor arrived at Taipei airport on Monday and was responding well to treatment, said Shih Wen-yi, a spokesman from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

The man was found to be running a fever after arriving from New York via Hong Kong late Monday and was sent to hospital for testing, Shih said. Lab results confirmed early Wednesday that he had contracted the H1N1 virus.

"We urge the public not to panic and the passengers aboard the flight to contact the CDC for testing," he said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the doctor, who practises in Taiwan, had been in the United States between February and May. Taoyuan General Hospital identified the man as a Taiwan-based Australian.

"He started to feel sick when he was about to arrive in Taiwan. Most of his symptoms have been alleviated after treatment," hospital spokesman Wang Wei-jie told AFP.

Taiwan's health minister, Yeh Chin-chuan, currently in Geneva attending the World Health Organization's annual meeting, was planning to cut short his visit following the island's first confirmed case, local reports said.

"The health department is prepared so the public can rest assured. The flu's mortality rate is low, unlike SARS," Yeh said in Geneva, referring to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that hit mostly Asian countries in 2003.

Yeh, a public health expert, is best known for leading Taipei through the SARS crisis as the capital's deputy mayor.

A(H1N1) flu has claimed about 79 lives worldwide, according to the WHO.

The UN agency has reported some 9,830 infections in 40 countries.

- AFP/ir

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

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