Asian nations warned to stay vigilant over flu

By: AFP
Published: 7/05/2009 at 04:56 PM

The World Health Organization Thursday urged Asian nations to remain vigilant against swine flu, admitting that it had yet to get a handle on the outbreak despite the relatively low death toll.

The warning came as officials from China, Japan, South Korea and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met in Bangkok to forge a common front in the fight against the influenza A(H1N1) virus.

Hundreds of Thai soldiers surrounded the venue for the meeting at a downtown Bangkok hotel to prevent a repeat of anti-government protests that wrecked a regional summit in Thailand in April.

WHO Acting Director-General Keiji Fukuda said the virus was milder than that which caused the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic but warned that it could yet follow a similar pattern and become more virulent later in the year.

"It is critical for countries to maintain their alertness and monitoring so this evolution can be followed as closely as possible," Fukuda told the Asian officials via videolink from Geneva.

"We don't believe we have fully got a handle on the severity of the phenomenon," he said, adding that Asian nations "should look very closely at their preparedness plans".

Asia has been relatively unscathed by the virus. WHO figures on Wednesday said 1,893 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infections have been reported by 23 countries, with 31 dying from the disease.

Officials from the 13 Asian nations meeting at Bangkok later updated their counterparts on the measures they have adopted to counter the virus. Health ministers from the region will meet on Friday.

Asian nations, already experienced with dealing with deadly SARS and bird flu, have introduced a range of measures from thermoscanners at airports to widespread surveillance steps.

South Korea on Thursday confirmed its third case of swine flu while China started lifting a seven-day quarantine on passengers who had shared a flight from Mexico with a man who later tested positive for swine flu.

Fukuda said, however, that vigilance was necessary.

"Complacency is the greatest danger," he said. "It does appear to be a period where the virus may be seeding itself in various parts of the world."

He added: "What we are seeing now is milder than in 1918 (when up to 50 million people died). But the 1918 started mild in springtime and became more severe in winter."

Developing nations in the southern hemisphere, where it is currently the flu season, could be particularly at risk if the virus spreads there, he said, especially in Africa.

Anne Schuchat, deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the conference there was "encouraging news" about the severity of the A(H1N1) virus, with only two deaths in the United States so far.

But she said it was possible that "many more losses will occur".

The meeting was the first of ASEAN and its regional partners since protesters stormed a summit in the Thai beach resort of Pattaya in April, forcing some foreign leaders to evacuate by helicopter.

Thai security forces blocked roads around the hotel and troops brandishing riot shields and batons stood guard on Thursday, although there was no sign of any demonstrations.

Officials Note Youth of Serious Flu Cases

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
Published: May 6, 2009

Although very few Americans have developed serious swine flu complications, those who have are surprisingly young, United States health officials said Wednesday.

A bus stop in Mexico City on Wednesday as some people began returning to work.
Only 35 people have been hospitalized with confirmed swine flu infections, but their median age is 15, said Dr. Richard E. Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is something that’s raising concern,” he said. “It’s something we’re keeping an eye on.”



In Mexico, where the epidemic is believed to have started in March, hospitalizations and deaths among previously healthy young people alerted authorities that something other than seasonal flu was circulating. Although seasonal flu causes 250,000 to 500,000 deaths annually around the world, the vast majority are of the elderly, of infants and of people with other health problems.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that there were 1,893 confirmed cases in 23 countries. The flu is blamed for the deaths of 42 people in Mexico and 2 in the United States.

Of the 35 Americans hospitalized, 7 were known to have other health problems, Dr. Besser said. He did not specify the problems, but said there was “a wide range.”

He also cautioned against “overinterpretation” from such a small number of hospitalizations. The fact that many early cases were students who had spent spring break in Mexico could make the flu’s spread more common in teenagers, he said. And some scientists have speculated that anyone born before 1957 has some immunity. In that year, the H2N2 “Asian flu” largely displaced the H1N1 seasonal flu that had been circulating since 1918; in 1977, the H1N1 “Russian flu” emerged and became a seasonal flu, but may not give any protection.

Across the country, the number of confirmed cases rose to 642 in 41 states, up from 408 on Tuesday. Illinois now has the most confirmed cases, with 122, surpassing New York with 97.

Dr. Besser said that might be because Illinois was testing more. He said that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, on a visit to the C.D.C. earlier, had been asked by a reporter why New York had been surpassed, and had answered: “You want 200 more cases? We’ll test 200 more people.”

In Albany, the state health commissioner, Dr. Richard F. Daines, said New York had cut back on testing and would suspend daily news briefings and treat the virus like a seasonal flu.

“We need no longer conduct surveillance to determine the existence of the virus,” he said. Instead, the state will test only enough to follow overall trends in the virus.

Dr. Besser said, as he has before, that he expected the flu to spread to all 50 states and to cause more serious cases.

At a W.H.O. news conference, Marie-Paule Kieny, chief of the W.H.O.’s vaccine research initiative, estimated that the world’s vaccine makers had the capacity to make a maximum of 1.2 billion doses of a new H1N1 vaccine within six months after getting a seed vaccine, which the C.D.C. is now working on.

Many wealthy countries have already made arrangements with vaccine makers to buy millions of doses, she said. The W.H.O. is meeting with vaccine companies to try to get them to reserve some doses for purchase by United Nations agencies or charities to provide them to poor countries.

In Mexico, people went back to work on Wednesday, but more than 33 million students spent another day at home. High school and university students return on Thursday, and younger students go back to school on Monday.

American, Already Ailing, Dies of Swine Flu

By ELISABETH MALKIN and SHARON OTTERMAN
Published: May 5, 2009

The first American has died after contracting the swine flu virus, Texas health officials said Tuesday. Officials did not identify the 33-year-old Texas woman but added that she suffered from an unnamed pre-existing medical condition.

The health of the woman, a schoolteacher who lived in Harlingen, near the border with Mexico, was worsened by the H1N1 flu virus, said Leonel Lopez, the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services epidemiologist. Mr. Lopez said that the woman had recently given birth, and added that the baby was in good health.

“I don’t want people to panic,” Mr. Lopez said. “Her death was a combination of a pre-existing health condition and the flu. The flu just made things worse.”

The woman had been hospitalized with complications from the flu since April 14, and died earlier this week, said Doug McBride, a spokesman for the state health department. He said that other members of her family had undergone testing and none were known to have contracted the flu.

The woman’s death came roughly a week after the first known swine-flu fatality in the United States, a Mexican toddler who died in a Houston hospital on April 27. Earlier on Tuesday, federal health officials said they expected that more cases of the disease, including some deaths, would come to light.

But while the virus, officially called influenza A(H1N1), has continued to spread across the United States and around the world, it is far less deadly than initially feared. In Mexico, where the outbreak apparently had its origins, new cases have begun to ebb, and President Felipe Calderón lowered the national alert level on Monday.

Still, Mexico called off Cinco de Mayo celebrations on Tuesday, including the biggest — a re-enactment of the May 5, 1862, victory over French troops in the central state of Puebla. The number of confirmed cases in Mexico now stands at 942 and 29 deaths, according to the Mexican authorities.

The authorities have been seeking to strike a balance between the health risk of widespread shutdowns and the economic cost of keeping parts of the economy shuttered. In Mexico, the nationwide impact on industries, including tourism, has cost about $2.3 billion, or between 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said Tuesday.

“We know that there could be a light or small increase in the number of cases, but we are also conscious of the importance of reactivating the economy and the return to normality of ordinary life for all Mexicans,” Health Minister José Ángel Córdova said Monday afternoon.
Instead of closing schools, he said, officials said parents should keep children showing any symptoms home, and teachers will keep a close eye on the health of students. But bars, nightclubs, cinemas and theaters, however, will remain closed until further notice.

Worldwide, health authorities are taking a variety of measures to try to limit the outbreak, as confirmed cases continue to rise.

In Geneva on Tuesday, the World Health Organization said 1,490 cases had been confirmed in 21 countries, compared with 1,085 cases in the same number of countries a day earlier. The only confirmed deaths have been in Mexico and the United States, which is now reporting 403 confirmed cases in 38 states. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they believed the disease was not nearly as lethal or severe as they had initially thought it could be, and they recommended on Tuesday that schools with confirmed cases no longer shut their doors.

“Closing schools is not effective” in halting the spread of the virus, said Dr. Richard E. Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Illinois, the number of confirmed infections rose more than tenfold in the space of 24 hours, climbing from eight cases on Monday to 82. New York continues to lead the tally, with 90 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu. There can be up to a week delay in confirming infections due to laboratory backlogs, experts say.

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My reaction:

1. Even the death toll of swine flu over the world is lower than we expected, Asian nations still have to stay put and look out for any signs of infections. Because it could get more severe like SARS or bird flu which was happened before.

2. “The fact that many early cases were students who had spent spring break in Mexico could make the flu’s spread more common in teenagers,”

If the swine flu were to get into the United States, many parents from many countries had sent their children to spend a time in the U.S. There’s a chance that they could bring the virus back to their homeland.

3. The media might have exaggerated the situations.

4. Many people think this swine flu is “milder” than other epidemic. The media can cause carelessness to the audience.

5. Even though the death toll is low, but still a lot of people are in the cases.

Conclusion:

Swine flu is now widespreading. And what makes it frightful, is that it can be infected by human-to-human and I think it's hard to control. And I think it's time for the leader of each country will unite together to defeat this swine flu.

Our government should have a stronger measure in the airport. We can't be careless by the number of people who died. Or think that it's infected only in Mexico and can't get to us here in Thailand.