Healthy Me - At Home and Away: World Health Day

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Monday, June 1, 2009

Flu Outbreak Special Report

Australia's H1N1 flu cases jumped by nearly a third to pass 400 on Monday, making it the Asia-Pacific region's worst-hit country and intensifying a major health emergency.

Confirmed cases leapt from 302 early in the day to 401, surpassing Japan as Asia's H1N1 flu hotspot and handing Australia the fourth largest number of confirmed cases in the world behind the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The scare has prompted a series of emergency measures with 14 schools closed, most in Victoria. Officials are considering raising alert levels and have released 5,000 stockpiled face masks for the south-eastern state.

Figures released Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO) showed that H1N1 flu had infected 15,510 people in 53 countries since it was first sprang to prominence last month in North America.

Experts however say there is no suggestion yet that the flu outbreak has taken a life of its own, while pharmaceutical firms race to find a vaccine and the WHO warns the world to be ready for the H1N1 flu to become more severe.

From ChannelNewsAsia.com - Tuesday, June 2, 2009

H1N1 flu cases jump to 276 in Chile

Posted: 01 June 2009 0859 hrs

People wear protective masks as a precaution against H1N1 flu in Santiago

SANTIAGO - Chilean health authorities confirmed 26 new cases of Influenza A (H1N1) on Sunday, raising the number of patients in the country to 276, the highest number on the continent.

The sometimes-deadly disease continued its rise across Latin America meanwhile with Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and the Dominican Republic all reporting new cases.

Officials here said that most of the victims were in the capital, and that most cases were mild and being treated at home. Three people remain in serious condition in hospital, however.

A(H1N1) flu has killed nearly a hundred and infected over 15,500 worldwide, according to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, since it emerged in North America in late April.

According to figures released by individual governments, the virus has actually now killed more than 110 people around the world.

In the southern hemisphere, health experts fear the new virus could take hold, as winter sets in and the regular flu season gets underway.

Argentine health authorities meanwhile reported 15 new cases on Sunday, a day after reporting 20 new cases, raising the country's total patient count to 115.

Officials in Buenos Aires said those with new A(H1N1) flu infections were recovering well and that most of them were found at several private schools in the capital, where students had recently returned from the United States.

The outbreak has prompted officials to close the schools for two weeks in a bid to contain the virus.

In the Dominican Republic, officials confirmed nine cases of the disease, raising the country's total to 11, a day after Santo Domingo rebuffed a Russian claim that the Caribbean island was under-reporting its cases in a bid to boost tourism.

"We fear that in reality, the situation is very different," Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief sanitary inspector, had told the Interfax news agency in response to the island reporting only two cases.

On Sunday the island's Ministry of Public Health reported that of the nine new cases one had been hospitalized.

In Peru health authorities said they had confirmed two more cases of the virus, bringing the country's total to 40.

Both cases were found in Lima and are recovering well on medication at home, officials said.

Brazil also confirmed four new cases, which brought the country's total number to 20.

At its last count at the end of last week Mexican authorities said 97 people had died from the disease and that 4,932 had been infected. Officials however maintained that the epidemic was on the wane there. - AFP/ir

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Monday, May 18, 2009

WHO resists declaring pandemic over H1N1 flu

Margaret Chan (C), Director General of WHO, during the first day of the 62nd World Health Assembly in Geneva.

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation on Monday cautioned against declaring a full-fledged H1N1 flu pandemic yet, even as cases in Japan and the United States soared and a New York school official died of the virus.

WHO chief Margaret Chan told member states on the first day of the UN health body's annual assembly they may be facing a "calm before the storm," but that the organisation had so far held off on raising the alert.

"We remain in phase five," she said, following speculation the alert would be raised to the maximum six after new cases emerged in Japan. Level five only indicates a pandemic is imminent.

"We need to warn the public whenever necessary but reassure them whenever possible. This is a difficult balancing act," the WHO director general told a special debate on the new A(H1N1) virus.

WHO officials have warned that sustained transmission in a country outside the Americas, where it first emerged, without a direct link to travellers, would warrant declaration of a pandemic, or global spread of the virus.

Japan shuttered schools and kindergartens after H1N1 flu cases there shot up to 163 and authorities warned the real number of infections from the virus could already be in the hundreds.

In New York, 12 schools have been temporarily closed after the death of a 55-year-old assistant principal at a school in the borough of Queens, bringing the nation's death toll to six.

Separately, the US government reported on Monday more than 400 new cases to take the nation's total number of infections above 5,000.

"We cannot stop the virus from spreading. We should not be surprised to see more cases," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned.

Chan, who can declare a pandemic after consulting a panel of scientists, acknowledged the scientific uncertainty and the need for more information on the virus that emerged in Mexico and the United States a few weeks ago.

"We do not know how long this period will take, if this is the calm before the storm," Chan told the assembly, adding there was "every reason to be concerned with the interaction with other viruses."

Britain's Health Secretary Alan Johnson led calls for caution, backed by New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, the head of the Pan American Health Organisation, the WHO's regional body for the Americas as well as other countries.

"I think you, as you and others have said, need more time, we need more time to study this," Johnson said.

Besides not raising the alert level, the WHO also advised the pharmaceutical industry against switching its production focus onto the new swine flu virus, recommending that making seasonal flu vaccines was still the priority.

More than 8,800 swine flu cases have been confirmed in 40 countries and more than 70 people have died.

Greece became the latest country to report its first confirmed case of H1N1 flu, a 19-year-old man who recently returned from the United States, junior health minister Georges Papagiorgos told reporters.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has downgraded a travel warning for Mexico, but top official Anne Schuchat took issue with media reporting that is now playing down the outbreak.

"The H1N1 virus is not going away, despite what you may have heard," she told reporters, stressing that the number of confirmed cases in the United States may be only the "tip of the iceberg."

Until Friday, Japan thought it had kept the virus at bay. The majority of the 163 new cases are concentrated in Kobe and Osaka after two high schools met for a volleyball tournament, with some players and coaches feeling feverish after the games.

Authorities said the real number of infections could already be in the hundreds with the virus spreading fast in the densely populated island nation.

"This is not just a matter for Hyogo and Osaka," said Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe. "We have to act swiftly by assuming the virus is already widespread across the country." - AFP/de

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Japan flu cases soar as WHO mulls pandemic alert

English: A map of the infected countries of the H1N1 flu of 2009 as of 30 April 2009. confirmed death and infections confirmed infections unconfirmed infections This map has been uploaded for use in the Wikinews article Swine flu outbreaks appear globally; WHO raises pandemic alert level to 5 because the map used should reflect the information known at the time the article was published. ---- (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

AFP - Tuesday, May 19

KOBE, Japan (AFP) - - The number of swine flu cases soared in Japan Monday and a New York teacher died of the virus, increasing the prospects of world health chiefs declaring an official pandemic at their annual meeting.

Japan shuttered more than 2,000 schools and kindergartens after it confirmed that swine flu cases had reached 129 with authorities warning that the real number of infections from (A)H1N1 could already be in the hundreds.

Officials in New York, where six schools had already been closed, were reported to have ordered the closure of five more after the death of a 55-year-old assistant principal at a school in the borough of Queens.

Mitchell Wiener was "overwhelmed by the illness despite treatment with an experimental drug," a spokesman for Flushing Hospital Medical Center where Wiener had been treated since Wednesday told the New York Times.

His death brought the toll in the United States to six. While only a fraction of the 66 deaths in Mexico, the US accounts for more than half of the overall caseload from a virus which has been reported in 40 countries.

According to the latest figures from the United Nations' World Health Organization , around 8,500 people have been infected with (A)H1N1.

The figure is rising rapidly, increasing the likelihood that the organisation will raise its pandemic alert level to a maximum level six. It is already at level five, indicating that a pandemic is imminent.

The top level would indicate sustained community transmission in a second region outside the Americas.

Keiji Fukuda, acting Assistant Director General of the WHO, told AFP the organisation was "looking very carefully at the situation" in Japan.

The rapid rise in infections there has highlighted the difficulties facing authorities as they try to contain the spread of the virus.

Until Friday, Japan thought it had kept the virus at bay, after detecting four people who tested positive when they flew in from North America and immediately quarantining fellow passengers.

The majority of the scores of new cases are concentrated in Kobe and Osaka after two high schools from the areas met for a volleyball tournament, with some players and coaches feeling feverish after the games.

"Considering the situation, it is possible that the infections spread through volleyball games," said Toshizo Ido, the governor of Hyogo prefecture, which includes Kobe city.

"We have to contain this in the region, but it is becoming very difficult."
Residents of Kobe have rushed to hospitals and emergency fever clinics, while pharmacies have quickly run out of face masks.

WHO bosses have proposed shortening the meeting from 10 days to five to minimise the time officials are away from their countries during the crisis.
Any announcement on raising the alert level will be made by WHO Director General Margaret Chan after consultations with a panel of scientific experts.

Chan has voiced fears that a second wave of the virus could strike "with a vengeance" later this year during the usual northern hemisphere flu season and says it would be better to plan for the worst.

The virus had "quickly demonstrated its capacity to spread easily from one person to another, to spread widely within an affected country and to spread rapidly to additional countries," she said on Friday.

"We expect this pattern of international spread to continue," she added.

Hours of debate are expected to be devoted to influenza and pandemic preparations, a regular topic in recent years after H5N1 bird flu took hold in humans.

The WHO is also holding talks with scientists and vaccine makers about triggering large scale pandemic vaccine production and whether to halt seasonal flu production in order to free up production capacity.

Experts have also expressed concern about possible mutation of the A(H1N1) virus that could make it more resistant to antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza, which have been stockpiled by countries to treat severe flu.

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

No deal on sharing of H1N1 vaccines at WHO meet

A doctor shows a mucus sample and the reactive strip employed to detect the influenza A(H1N1) virus

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation's annual assembly beginning on Monday is set to be dominated by the alarm over the swine flu outbreak that has brought the world to the brink of an influenza pandemic.

The outbreak of the new A(H1N1) flu virus that has swept into 38 countries in the space of three weeks is likely to sideline discussions by the 193 member states on tuberculosis, viral hepatitis or human organ transplants.

Those issues could be dropped if a committee on Monday endorses the WHO's proposal to shorten the gathering to five days instead of 10 in order to minimise the time senior health officials spend away from their countries.

The UN health agency said they were needed back home to coordinate national efforts against the outbreak of influenza A(H1N1).

Since it was brought to world attention in Mexico and the United States less than a month ago, the new swine flu virus has infected nearly 8,500 people, according to WHO, and spread beyond North America with travellers.

The WHO raised the global pandemic flu alert to level five on April 29, one step away from outright pandemic or sustained spread of the disease on more than one continent.

Top officials said Friday that research suggests that the virus is so contagious that it will probably spread to new, so far unaffected, regions.

Acting WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda also said studies indicated that a "significant number of people" had been infected but those were undetected or unconfirmed by laboratory tests.

Hours of debate in the annual meeting are expected to be devoted to influenza and pandemic preparations, a regular topic in recent years after H5N1 bird flu took hold in humans.

At a weekend meeting in Geneva ahead of the assembly world governments failed to reach a final deal on the sharing of virus research material and vaccines in case of a global flu pandemic.

The WHO is holding talks with scientists and vaccine makers about triggering large scale pandemic vaccine production and whether to halt seasonal flu production in order to free up production capacity.

Experts have also expressed concern about possible mutation of the A(H1N1) virus that could make it more resistant to antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza, which have been stockpiled by countries to treat severe flu.

"Scientists are concerned about possible changes that could take place as the virus spreads to the southern hemisphere and encounters currently circulating human viruses, as the normal influenza season in this hemisphere begins," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said Friday.

Coincidentally, the assembly is also due to examine the implementation of International Health Regulations, which since 2005 oblige countries such as Mexico to swiftly raise the alarm about potential international health threats.

Mexico's ambassador to the UN agencies in Geneva, Luis Alfonso de Alba, recently said the assembly should also debate what measures were justified in dealing with outbreaks of disease.

Relations between Mexico and China were strained following Beijing's decision to suspend flights from Mexico at the height of the crisis.

"Nobody intends to limit the sovereignty of a state, but at the same time we need to be certain that there is a common understanding on what are justifiable measures," said de Alba.

"It's not a question on what kind of measure, whether to have a quarantine or to take other specific action. It is also how it is done, the way it is done."

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova has also raised the issue of economic compensation.

"There are grounds to apply for compensation... for the country that has been hardest-hit" by the virus, Cordova said, explaining that if Mexico had not sounded the alert, the impact on health and economy in countries later hit by the virus would have been "enormous".

The WHO's US$4.54 billion biennial budget proposal for 2010-2011 is also due to be submitted to the assembly.

- AFP/yb

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

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Holistic health, anyone?