SWINE FLU - UPDATES & USEFUL INFORMATION

[Bianca]

                                    First Mexico fatal flu victim sought help for days






Robert Campbell
April 30, 2009
MEXICO CITY
(Reuters)

- The 39-year-old woman who was the first to die in Mexico's swine flu epidemic spent the last eight days of her life going from clinic to clinic to find out what was wrong with her but doctors were baffled.

The woman, from the southern state of Oaxaca, died shortly after being admitted to hospital as an emergency case. Experts only identified the virus that killed her 10 days later.

The swine flu outbreak has killed as many as 159 people in Mexico, and forced the World Health Organization on Wednesday to warn that a global flu pandemic is imminent.

The woman, who worked as a census taker in the city of Oaxaca, became ill with what was she thought was a severe case of pneumonia on April 4 but was not admitted to hospital until April 12.

"She went to several private clinics where she was given various diagnoses and various treatments. However, her condition worsened and she was taken to the hospital by emergency services on the 12th and the next day she died," Miguel Angel Lezana, Mexico's chief epidemiologist, told reporters.

Authorities have not named the woman.

Mexican health officials are still scrambling to understand how the illness broke out. Attention has focused on a town in Veracruz state near a large pig farm where another confirmed case of swine flu in a human was detected.

But Lezana said the presence of Eurasian swine flu genes in the H1N1 virus makes it unlikely that the disease originated in a Mexican pig farm.

Oaxaca is one of Mexico's poorest states, but victims of the flu have been found in wealthier areas including the capital.

The cause of the woman's death was not determined until April 23 when a previously unknown flu virus combining strains of swine, bird and human flus was identified.

Recovery from the flu requires quick attention with antiviral drugs and equipment to assist patients with breathing, Lezana said.



(Reporting
by Robert Campbell;

Editing
by Cynthia Osterman)

[Bianca]

                                    WHO to stop using term 'swine flu' to protect pigs






Frank Jordans,
Associated Press Writer
– April 30, 2009
GENEVA

– The World Health Organization announced Thursday it will would stop using the term "swine flu" to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs. The policy shift came a day after Egypt began slaughtering thousands of pigs in a misguided effort to prevent swine flu.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency had expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to ban pork products and order the slaughter of pigs.

"Rather than calling this swine flu ... we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A," Thompson said.

Egypt began slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs Wednesday even though experts said swine flu is not linked to pigs and not spread by eating pork. Angry farmers protested the government decree.

In Paris, the World Organization for Animal Health said Thursday "there is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs."

Killing pigs "will not help to guard against public or animal health risks" presented by the virus and "is inappropriate," the group said in a statement.

China, Russia, Ukraine and other nations have banned pork exports from Mexico and parts of the United States, blaming swine flu fears.

Most in the Muslim world consider pigs unclean animals and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions. The farmers in Egypt raise the pigs for consumption by the country's Christian minority.

WHO also reported the number of confirmed swine flu cases rose to 257 worldwide Thursday, with cases in Mexico rising to 97 from 26, with seven deaths. The WHO confirmed tally from the United States now stands at 109, with one death.

Other confirmed cases include 19 in Canada, 13 in Spain, eight in Britain, three each in Germany and New Zealand, two in Israel and one each in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Thompson told reporters in Geneva that at least one of the Spanish cases involved a person who had not traveled to Mexico. Spanish officials said that was a man who apparently got the virus from his girlfriend, who recently returned from Mexico.

WHO raised the pandemic flu alert to phase 5 on Wednesday, one step away from the highest level indicating a global outbreak. WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said Thursday there were no indications in the past day that would prompt the U.N. body to raise the alert further.

To move from pandemic alert level 5 to level 6 means that WHO believes there is evidence of big outbreaks in at least two world regions and a pandemic is under way.

Fukuda said the jump in confirmed cases from Mexico was probably the result of scientists working their way through a backlog of untested samples from suspected cases.

"They are going through several thousands of laboratory specimens right now," he said.

WHO has started distributing its stockpile of 2 million courses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to regional offices, which will decide where to send them next.

Many of those drugs will go to developing countries that don't have stockpiles of their own and some will be sent to Mexico, Fukuda said, without providing figures.

[HereForNow]

Swine Flu Martial Law Bill Clears Massachusetts Senate
Body: Swine Flu Martial Law Bill Clears Massachusetts Senate
Posted April 29th, 2009 by sharpsteve

It took corporate media swine flu hysteria to ram through a martial law bill in Massachusetts. S18 gives the Governor the power to authorize the deployment and use of force to distribute supplies and materials and local authorities will be allowed to enter private residences for investigation and to quarantine individuals.

http://www.infowars.com/s...

The bill specifically mandates the following:
(1) to require the owner or occupier of premises to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;
(2) to close, direct, and compel the evacuation of, or to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated any building or facility, and to allow the reopening of the building or facility when the danger has ended;
(3) to decontaminate or cause to be decontaminated, or to destroy any material;
(4) to restrict or prohibit assemblages of persons;
(5) to require a health care facility to provide services or the use of its facility, or to transfer the management and supervision of the health care facility to the department or to a local public health authority;
http://www.mass.gov/legis...

The Associated Press reports:
The Massachusetts Senate has unanimously passed a pandemic flu preparation bill that has languished in the Legislature before the recent swine flu outbreak.


The 36-0 vote today sends the measure to the House. Both branches have taken it up in past years, but have not been able to agree on the details.


The new Senate version would allow the public health commissioner — in a public health emergency — to close or evacuate buildings, enter private property for investigations, and quarantine individuals.


http://news.bostonherald....

They got it passed just in time for this:
Breaking News
Siblings in Lowell, Mass.
have swine flu
(NECN: Lowell, Mass.) - Two young siblings in Lowell, Massachusetts, have tested positive for swine flu.

http://www.necn.com/Bosto...

Swine Flu Martial Law Bill Clears Massachusetts Senate

[Bianca]

                                     Mexico: 300 confirmed swine flu cases, 12 dead
 




         
AP
May 1, 2009
MEXICO CITY

– Mexican health authorities said Thursday they confirmed 300 swine flu cases and 12 deaths due to the virus among a total of 679 people tested so far.

Less than half of the suspected cases tested have been confirmed as swine flu, and a series of visits to the families of victims also turned up relatively few suspected cases.

Authorities had previously listed 260 confirmed cases, and said the number of cases appeared to be stabilizing.

Health Secretary Jose Cordova said one encouraging sign was that the daily number of people admitted to government-run Social Security hospitals with swine flu symptoms had fallen from a high of 212 people on April 20 to 46 on Thursday.

Health workers have so far visited the homes of 77 suspected victims and found only two cases in which relatives tested positive for an A-type flu virus that could be related to the swine strain.

Cordova said Thursday that authorities had approved or spent 1.6 billion pesos ($116 million) for medical supplies and equipment so far in the epidemic.

[Bianca]

                            Company warned officials of flu 18 days before alert was issued






Les Blumenthal,
Mcclatchy Newspapers –
Apr 30, 2009
WASHINGTON

— A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert about a public health emergency of international concern.

Both federal and international health officials had access to the warning from Veratect Corp. Later e-mails calling attention to the company's subsequent report that the disease was possibly spreading in Mexico were sent to 10 officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , said Robert Hart , the company's chief executive.

Hart said he wasn't sure why health officials didn't act sooner.

"They have a lot of other responsibilities," Hart said on Thursday. "But every day makes a difference."

CDC officials in Atlanta said they were aware of Veratect's claims and hadn't been working with the company.

"We have nothing to add about their claims," said CDC spokesman Llelwyn Grant, adding that the CDC and other public health agencies had plans in place to deal with a flu pandemic and responded rapidly once they became aware of the Mexican outbreak.

Veratect, based in Kirkland, Wash. , uses a technique known as "data mining" to automatically search tens of thousands of Web sites daily for early signs of looming medical problems or civil unrest anywhere in the world. Anything of interest is turned over to a team of 35 analysts to determine its significance and to post on the company's Web site. The company markets access to its Web site to government agencies, businesses and others and has tried unsuccessfully to sell its service to the CDC, the World Health Organization and the Department of Homeland Security .

Rep. Norm Dicks , D- Wash. , who talked with the CDC, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies as late as January about Veratect, said the federal government had made a mistake in not purchasing the company's program, especially in light of the flu outbreak.

"I am very upset about this," Dicks said. "Not to have it is totally ridiculous. This is a perfect example of why they needed this and now we are paying a price."

Earlier this year, Hart said, Veratect gave free access to its Web site to the CDC and the WHO on a trial basis.

On April 6 , 18 days before the WHO issued its alert, Veratect reported on its Web site a strange outbreak of respiratory disease in La Gloria, Mexico , noting that local residents thought the outbreak was linked to contamination from pig breeding farms nearby.

Hart said the information was available to the CDC and many state and local health authorities. The company's server showed an epidemiologist at the Pan American Health Organization , which is part of the World Health Organization , looked at the message about the La Gloria outbreak twice, on April 10 and 11, Hart said.

Ten days after the warning was first issued, on April 16 , Veratect reported the disease was possibly spreading in Mexico with an "unspecified number of atypical pneumonia cases" detected at a hospital in Oaxaca . Because of the heightened concern, an automated e-mail was sent to 10 people at the CDC to notify them the report was available.

With the outbreak apparently spreading, Hart said the company's chief scientist, James Wilson , called people he knew at the CDC's Emergency Operations Center on April 20 to alert them to what was happening in Mexico . At that point, the CDC was focused on possible swine flu events in Texas and California , and a physician at the emergency operations center indicated the CDC was not aware of the spreading outbreak in Mexico , Hart said.

"We thought this deserved immediate attention and they started looking at it," Hart said.

Four days later, the World Health Organization made its announcement.

Veratect's warnings came as President Barack Obama prepared for his trip to Mexico , arriving in Mexico City on April 16 . The White House said Thursday that an Energy Department staffer who was part of the advance team for Obama's visit is suspected of having contracted swine flu in Mexico and transmitting it to his family in Maryland . White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the man, who wasn't identified, never got within six feet of the president.

Hart said his company's system operated as it was supposed to.

"We don't make predictions," he said. "We give the earliest wisp of smoke before the fire."

Hart said he wasn't critical of the CDC or other health organizations, adding that what was needed was an effective global health monitoring system that Veratect should be a part of.

"Hindsight is great and it's hard to say whether (the delay) altered anything," he said. "The only way to stop anything like this is to break the cycle."

Others, however, cautioned that the use of data mining to track a possible disease outbreak was untested and said a number of questions about its effectiveness remained unanswered.

"This approach is not yet vetted," said Dr. Marguerite Neill , an infectious disease specialist at Brown University and a spokeswoman for the Infectious Disease Society of America . "It is an interesting idea, but we haven't used it before."

Neill said the problem with using information picked up through data mining was determining whether it was just an indication of a routine disease outbreak or something much more serious.

"It needs to be put in a clinical or epidemiological context," she said. "I'm not sure Veratect can do that."

[Bianca]

             Global swine flu pandemic could actually be LESS dangerous than the annual flu season






By Mail Foreign Service
MailOnLine.uk
1st May 2009

Scientists are coming to the conclusion that the new strain of swine flu that has killed at least ten people around the world may actually be less dangerous than the average annual flu season.

The World Health Organisation is expected to move quickly to designate a full pandemic - at level 6 of its 6-point scale - within days to reflect the continuing spread of swine flu among people who have not been to Mexico, including in Europe.

But, though some people have died, the most common complaint from sufferers infected with the virus has been diarrhoea - and the rate of infection appears to be more of a trickle than a deluge.

Between 3 and 5 million people experience severe illness due to regular, seasonal flu around the world each year, and between 250,000 and 500,000 die as a result.

In the United States annually between five per cent and 20 per cent of the population becomes ill from the flu and 36,000 people die —a mortality rate of between 0.24 per cent and 0.96 per cent, reports have claimed.


The current mortality rate for swine flu is between 0.06 per cent and 0.24 per cent, the Los Angeles Times has reported - making it less lethal than the yearly bout of influenza.

[Volitzer]

Swine Flu Song (funny)

[Bianca]

                            Swine flu virus starting to look less threatening


   Swine flu virus doesn't appear to have genes that made the 1918 flu strain so deadly

           




Mike Stobbe,
Ap Medical Writer 
May 1, 2009
ATLANTA

– The swine flu virus that has frightened the world is beginning to look a little less ominous. New York City officials reported Friday that the swine flu still has not spread beyond a few schools. In Mexico, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught the virus.

One flu expert says there's no reason to believe the new virus is a more serious strain than seasonal flu. And a federal health official said the new flu virus doesn't appear to have genes that made the 1918 pandemic flu strain so deadly.

It's too soon to draw any definitive conclusions about what this variation of the H1N1 virus will do. Experts say the only wise course is to prepare for the worst. But in a world that's been rattled by the specter of a global pandemic, glimmers of hope are welcome.

President Obama noted Friday that it's not clear that the swine flu outbreak will turn out to be any worse than ordinary flu.

"It may turn out that H1N1 runs its course like ordinary flus, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations," Obama said.

But "we're taking it seriously," he said. Even if the flu turns out mild now, it could come back in a deadlier form during the normal flu season, he said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the illness so far had proven to be "a relatively minor annoyance."

City health officials say they have found few signs that the local outbreak of swine flu is spreading beyond a few pockets or getting more dangerous. The city has 50 cases, the most of any city in the United States.

Dr. Peter Palese, a leading flu researcher at New York's Mount Sinai Medical School, said the new virus appeared to be similar enough to other common flu strains that "we probably all have some type of immunity."

"There is no real reason to believe this is a more serious strain," he said.

Also Friday, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the new swine flu virus lacks the genetic traits that made the 1918 pandemic strain so deadly.

CDC flu chief Nancy Cox said the good news is "we do not see the markers for virulence that were seen in the 1918 virus." Nor does swine flu virus have the virulence traits found in the H5N1 strain of bird flu seen in recent years in Asia and other parts of the world, she said.

"However, we know that there is a great deal that we do not understand" about the strength of the 1918 virus and others that caused serious illnesses, she said. "So we are continuing to learn."

Another CDC official, Dr. Anne Schuchat, said preliminary studies suggest that in U.S. households with an infected person, about a quarter of other family members are getting sick as well.

In some pandemics, the overall infection rate has been as high as 35 percent, Cox said.

She noted the CDC has entered the gene information for the new virus into databases that are publicly available.

"A lot of researchers around the world can begin to look at those gene sequences as well, in case they see something we haven't already seen," she added.

The global flu epidemic early last century was possibly the deadliest outbreak of all time. That virus also was an H1N1 strain — different from the H1N1 strain involved in the current outbreak — and struck mostly healthy young adults. Experts estimate it killed about 40 to 50 million people worldwide.

___



Associated Press Writer

David Caruso
in New York
contributed to this report.

[Bianca]

                                Swine flu: Why such a huge response to so few cases?







YAHOO NEWS
Peter N. Spotts
Thu Apr 30, 2009

In recent days, the world has taken far-reaching steps to brace itself against the swine flu: The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert level to 5 on a six-point scale, the United States secretary of Homeland Security has declared a public-health emergency, and federal officials have released a stockpile of vaccines to state and local public-health providers.

The US has recorded 109 confirmed cases and one death related to this new variant of the flu. Yet in a typical flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate, some 36,000 people die in America alone because of complications from the illness.

Given the relatively small footprint of the disease so far, why has the US and the world community responded so overwhelmingly?

The answer: caution in the face of what scientists and public-health officials say they don't know about the virus.

"This situation is evolving rapidly, and it's filled with uncertainty," said Richard Besser, acting head of the CDC in Atlanta, during a press briefing.

In situations like these, public-heath officials walk a fine line between taking what they see as prudent precautions and triggering what some specialists call excessive fear.

Year to year, scientists see small genetic variations in the flu virus, but not enough to raise doubts about individuals' immunity to them or the effectiveness of existing vaccines. But the new virus raises questions that scientists have not yet been able to answer fully.

"We're seeing a big change" in the virus's genetic makeup, says Theodore Cohen, a communicable-disease specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Until these changes can be understood, the response is discretion.

Dr. Besser noted that reports are beginning to trickle in to the CDC of cases in which the individual involved is outside the cluster of cases so far where people had traveled to Mexico. That's where the outbreak originated.

Getting a clearer bead on the details of the agent and the evolution of the outbreak will allow public-health officials to tailor their responses more specifically, he said. Indeed, some biomedical researchers have taken an initial look at the agent's genetic makeup and infer that the outbreak could be relatively tame.

In addition, part of the challenge has to do with the evolving meaning of the term "pandemic," notes David Roepik, who heads Roepik & Associates, a Boston-based risk communication consulting firm.

Throughout much of the second half of the 20th century, pandemics came and went, but they often involved diseases for which vaccines or other medications were available, at least in the developed world.

But the outbreaks of SARS in 2003 and the on-and-off recurrence of certain strains of bird flu have changed the public-health community's perception about how it should respond to a potential pandemic. A 2006 avian outbreak involved only 115 reported cases, but 69 percent ended in fatalities. There were no effective medical treatments for either SARS or bird flu, and no general immunity among humans, Mr. Roepik notes.

The WHO's current warning level and the responses associated with it have their roots in these outbreaks.

"We are now thinking of 'pandemic' in those terms," says Roepik.

So far, he says, governments in the main have been doing an effective job in avoiding excessive fear. A few, however, have gone to extremes unsupported by existing scientific evidence. The Egyptian parliament on Wednesday reportedly ordered the death of every pig in the country, even though public-health officials say the problem is not related to the presence of pigs or consumption of pork products.

Even in the US, there have been "teachable moments," said Besser of the CDC. Vice President Joe Biden's advice Thursday that people not travel by airplanes or subways required a more nuanced clarification from Besser later in the day: "If you're ill, don't get on an airplane." For everyone else, "airplanes are safe; subways are safe. People should go out and live their lives."

[Bianca]

                                     US says flu appears not as virulent as 1918 strain
         





Olivier Knox –
May 2, 2009
WASHINGTON
(AFP)

– The new swine flu strain lacks traits that made the 1918 pandemic so deadly, US authorities said, amid a 50-state effort to contain the disease and spread prudence, not panic, among the public.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said total confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza in the United States climbed to 143 across 20 states, and that more were expected in the coming weeks.

"I'm optimistic that we are going to be able to manage this effectively, but we still have more work to do," President Barack Obama said as he discussed the government response to the outbreak with his cabinet at the White House.

On Saturday, he said in his weekly radio address that his administration was "taking all necessary precautions in the event that the virus does turn into something worse."

Seasonal flu in the United States kills about 36,000 people and forces 200,000 hospitalizations annually, officials said.

"The good news is that the current strain of H1N1 can be defeated by a course of antiviral treatment that we already have on hand," Obama pointed out.

Amid rampant references to the 1918 influenza outbreak that killed perhaps as many as 50 million people worldwide, officials said the new strain did not appear as deadly.

"We do not see the markers for virulence that were seen in the 1918 virus," Nancy Cox, the chief of the CDC's influenza division, told reporters on a conference call.

But Cox warned there was still "a great deal" that scientists "do not understand" about the 1918 influenza strain, which is thought to have been the deadliest influenza outbreak ever.

The median age of those confirmed ill in the United States was 17, with patients ranging in age from one year old to 81, said acting deputy CDC director Anne Schuchat.

The CDC said research into a vaccine against the new strain was making strides -- though one would likely not be available for months -- and stressed that most US cases had thus far been "relatively mild."

"Thankfully, we are not seeing as much severity as has been reported out of Mexico," acting CDC director Richard Besser said, as authorities south of the border gave an updated confirmed toll of 15 dead and 328 people infected.

US Vice President Joe Biden's home state of Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Florida and Virginia were the latest to battle the virus that has also reached into the heart of the US capital.

Officials urged common-sense steps like frequent, careful hand-washing, and said sick people should avoid travel -- but urged the healthy population not to shun restaurants, airplanes, or other crowded areas.

"It's really important that we strike a balance and that we don't do more harm with intervention than this virus is causing," Schuchat told National Public Radio.

Hundreds of schools closed across the country, as the number of suspected cases rose and was expected to climb further in the coming days -- partly because of intense new scrutiny of people with flu symptoms.

"In the next week we're going to hear reports of a lot more cases. We've now got people in every state and every health department working with us to detect these cases," said CDC respiratory disease section chief Cynthia Whitney.

"We're concerned about the possibility of severe cases, and we know there are likely to be some. But the majority of what we have seen so far has been mild, self-limited illness," said Schuchat.

Whitney told CNN there had "been a lot of progress" in research on a vaccine, with scientists selecting strains to go into the inoculation and working to grow them in the vast quantities needed.

"We'll probably see our case numbers go up," Whitney said, but adding that "with the summer often the flu will die down, so we'll hope it will be the case with this as well."

US authorities were still coping with the fallout from Biden's suggestion -- later retracted by his office and the White House -- that the public avoid travel on airplanes and subways.

"A clear message is: if you have the flu or flu-like symptoms, you shouldn't be getting on an airplane, or you shouldn't be getting in a subway. But for the general population, that's quite fine to do," Besser told ABC television.

Continental Airlines Friday announced it would roughly halve its service to Mexico for the month of May, citing low demand.

Prior to the reductions, Continental operated an average of 450 weekly flights to the country.

Only one person has so far died in the United States from the H1N1 flu virus: a Mexican toddler who was visiting relatives in Texas.

The US Marine Corps reported Friday that three marines had contracted the disease.

[Bianca]

                                 Lower Mexico flu death toll heartens nervous world
           





Catherine Bremer
May 2, 2009
MEXICO CITY
(Reuters)

– New laboratory data showed fewer people have died in Mexico than first thought from a new influenza strain, a glint of good news for a world rattled by the threat of a flu pandemic.

Mexico cut its suspected death toll from the H1N1 flu to up to 101 from as many as 176, as dozens of test samples came back negative. Fewer patients with severe flu symptoms were also checking into hospitals, suggesting the infection rate of a flu that has spread to Europe and Asia was declining.

The World Health Organization said on Saturday 15 countries have reported 615 infections with the new flu virus A-H1N1, widely known as swine flu.

Italy later confirmed its first case, a man in the Tuscany region who returned from Mexico on April 24. He has recovered.

Almost all infections outside Mexico have been mild. The only death in another country has been a Mexican toddler who was taken to the United States before he fell sick.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agreed the outbreak may not be as severe as it looked a few days ago, citing many mild cases that were not immediately noticed.

President Barack Obama said the United States was responding aggressively to the new flu strain.

He outlined steps his administration was taking to address the virus, including school closures, and said antivirals were being distributed to states where they may be needed and new stockpiles had been ordered.

For Mexicans -- spending a second weekend stuck indoors with stores and businesses shuttered across the country and the capital, Mexico City, devoid of its lively restaurants, bars, cinemas and museums -- the data is cheering.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova acknowledged the numbers were encouraging but cautioned it was too early to say Mexico had control of the flu.

"For now it's unpredictable," Cordova said late on Friday. "We need more days to see how it behaves and whether there is really a sustained decline."

The new virus is only the third infectious disease experts regard as having pandemic potential in the past 10 years.

It has world health experts racing to find a vaccine and is wreaking havoc with a travel industry that flies hundreds of thousands of people to and from Mexico each week.

China suspended flights to Mexico after Hong Kong authorities on Friday confirmed a Mexican man who flew via the Chinese mainland was infected with the flu strain.

[Bianca]

HOTEL GUESTS QUARANTINED



Police in surgical masks quarantined 200 guests and 100 staff inside a Hong Kong hotel where the Mexican, 25, had been staying, saying they would be confined for a week.

"They said everybody needed to go back to their rooms. I don't want to go to my room because I want to be out," an Australian man at the hotel told a TV reporter by telephone.

Hong Kong was badly hit by the SARS virus in 2003 and has had many episodes of H5N1 bird flu for more than a decade.

The Asian Development Bank said it was prepared to provide assistance to countries in the region to cope with the possible spread of flu, as it did during the SARS outbreak.

Several European countries have confirmed cases of the virus. The United States has been hit with 145 cases in 22 states.

Mexico has released a confusing batch of flu data in recent days but public hospitals have noted a steady drop in patients turning up with fevers, suggesting the infection rate may be declining as the nation dons face masks and hand gel.

"There are very few deaths worldwide," said Marcelo Musi, a salesman shopping for vegetables in Mexico City, where residents weary of masks, hand sanitizers and frightening headlines clutched at signs of an end to the crisis. "If there are no more cases, they say things will get better."

President Felipe Calderon ordered non-essential businesses to close for five days from Friday, extending a three-day holiday weekend over Monday and Tuesday.

Analysts say the move will further dent negative economic growth this year.

Countless families were devastated at having their long weekend ruined as restaurants, bars, playgrounds and parks that hold outdoor "cumbia" dances all stayed closed.

Cordova said of 159 files on suspected flu deaths, tests showed 58 died of other causes. He said 16 deaths are confirmed as caused by the H1N1 flu and 85 are being tested.



(Additional reporting by

Louise Egan and
Anahi Rama and

Tan Ee Lyn
in Hong Kong,

Laura MacInnis
in Geneva,

Silvia Aloisi
in Rome;

Editing by
Janet Lawrence)

[Bianca]

                             Scientists trace ancestry of swine flu virus to 1998 outbreak


         



Barbara Barrett,
Mcclatchy Newspapers
May 1, 2009
WASHINGTON

— The new H1N1 influenza virus that continues to spread through the U.S. has ancestry in a swine flu outbreak that first struck a North Carolina hog farm more than 10 years ago, according to scientists studying the strain's genetic makeup.

The current strain hasn't shown up in surveillance of U.S. pigs, and it can't be caught by eating pork.

The finding about its genetic background illustrates how viruses mutate over time and in some cases jump among species.

"Until you look at that, you can't understand the epidemiology of it," said Peter Cowen , the animal disease moderator for ProMed, an online emerging disease early-warning system. "It's key to understanding what our challenges may be in the future and how the virus is acting in the population."

The current strain's eight genetic segments are all associated with swine flu, said Raul Rabadan , a Columbia University scientist studying the new H1N1 genetic sequence that was made public this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

Two of the segments, Rabadan said, appear to come from Eurasia and are somewhat mysterious in origin. The other six can be traced to the North American pig outbreak, which turned out to include a combination of avian, swine and human flu.

"This virus was found in pigs here in the United States ," Rabadan said in an interview. "They were getting sick in 1998. It became a swine virus."

It spread among pregnant sows in Newton Grove, N.C. , causing them to abort their litters, and then to swine in Texas , Iowa and Minnesota — putting epidemiologists on alert about the new viral strain and the potential for a human outbreak.

That didn't happen, but public health officials became more aware of the farm-by-farm monitoring system and its importance to public health.

"We cannot protect human health unless we're working with what's going on in the environment and animal species," said Barrett Slenning , who leads the Animal Health Biosecurity Risk Management Population Health and Pathobiology Department at North Carolina State University .

Scientists don't yet know when or where the current H1N1 strain first developed. They know only that it was first identified after people in Mexico began falling ill with the fevers and aches associated with flu.

The current virus hasn't been found in swine, and the country's pork industry is scrambling to reassure consumers about the safety both of pork and the U.S. farm system.

Still, this week's findings about the new H1N1 virus' ancestry also has reignited concerns about the health impacts of factory farms, where thousands of hogs are housed closely together and shipped among sites as they grow.

The Humane Society of the United States highlighted factory farms in its analysis of the new H1N1 virus' history. The animal-rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals on Friday called on North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue to close the state's factory farms. And a report last year funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts emphasized that viruses can spread quickly among pigs in the close quarters of such farms. North Carolina has about 10 million pigs being raised on such farms.

"Pigs are amazing mixing bowls for creating new viruses," said Bob Martin , senior officer at the Pew Environmental Group . Martin was executive director of the study.

"It's a matter of when, not if," Martin said of the creation of new viruses on factory hog farms. "The structure of the system is the problem."

Cowen, who also is an epidemiologist at North Carolina State University's College of Veterinary Medicine , said factory farms have shown their ability to contain disease in their animals.

However, he said the current H1N1 outbreak shows the need to improve surveillance of healthy swine as well as pigs that show signs of illness.

"The key to being prepared in terms of responding to this threat from influenza, wherever its coming from — humans, swine or birds — is to know as much as we can about the viruses that are circulating," Cowen said.

This week's discovery is, in part, just another piece of the scientific puzzle in trying to understand the new H1N1 flu's history.

Scientists working around the world this week began tracing the virus' origins days after the CDC published its eight-chromosome genetic sequence.

Steven Salzberg , a computational biologist at the University of Maryland , was among the scientists who found that the new H1N1 virus contains strains from past swine viruses, including the one that swept through pig farms in 1998.

Salzberg said he doesn't blame factory farms for the current outbreak, because swine flu is common among pigs. He wants to know more about the H1N1 virus' ancestry.

That would require that scientists have more genetic sequences of swine flu taken from sick pigs over the past decade. Salzberg hopes the CDC will ask animal labs to send their existing samples in for coding.

"We really need many more," Salzberg said. "This outbreak is going to induce us to do that."

He may not have to wait long. Nancy Cox , the director of the influenza division at the CDC, said talks have already begun with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to begin collecting genetic sequences of swine flu found on farms in the future.

"If the samples haven't been collected from pigs, you won't have data to fill in the gaps," she said. "Going forward, it's going to be very important to have." 

[Bianca]

                                   
                               FARMERS FEAR PIGS MAY GET SWINE FLU FROM PEOPLE
           






Carey Gillam
– Fri May 1, 2009
KANSAS CITY
(Reuters)

– Humans have it. Pigs don't.

At least not yet, and U.S. pork producers are doing everything they can to make sure that the new H1N1 virus, known around the world as the "swine flu," stays out of their herds.

"That is the biggest concern, that your herd could somehow contract this illness from an infected person," said Kansas hog farmer Ron Suther, who is banning visitors from his sow barns and requiring maintenance workers, delivery men and other strangers to report on recent travels and any illness before they step foot on his property.

"If a person is sick, we don't want you coming anywhere on the farm," Suther said.

Those sentiments were echoed by producers around the nation this week as fears of a possible global flu pandemic grew, with more than 200 people sickened, including more than 100 in the United States, and at least 177 dead, all but one in Mexico.

"There is no evidence of this new strain being in our pig populations in the United States. And our concern very much is we don't want a sick human to come into our barns and transmit this new virus to our pigs," said National Pork Producers chief veterinarian Jennifer Greiner.

"If humans give it to pigs, we don't have things like Tamiflu for pigs. We don't have antivirals. We have no treatment other than to give them aspirin," said Greiner.

The World Health Organisation on Thursday officially declared it would stop calling the new strain of flu "swine flu," because no pigs in any country have been determined to have the illness and the origination of the strain has not been determined.

The never-before-seen H1N1 flu virus has elements of swine, avian and human varieties.

[Bianca]

                                                     PIGS CATCH  SWINE FLU   


                                                      Farmhand Infects Herd






By CLARA HO,
SUN MEDIA
May 3, 2009

A pig herd in central Alberta has been infected with the swine flu virus in what could potentially be the first human-to-animal virus transmission case, provincial officials confirmed yesterday afternoon.

More Albertans have also been affected by the bug, with Edmonton seeing its first four cases of the swine flu.

A man, young girl, and two women all have minor forms of the flu and are said to be recovering, and all are believed to be isolated cases, said the province's top doctor, Andre Corriveau.

The 2,200 animals were exposed to the virus by a farm worker exhibiting flu-like symptoms after returning from Mexico.

The office of the chief provincial veterinarian was notified Tuesday that some of the farm's pigs showed flu-like symptoms after the worker, who came home on April 12, exposed the pigs to the virus when he returned to work two days later.

The farm was immediately placed under quarantine and samples were taken and sent to the National Centre for Foreign Diseases in Winnipeg to be analyzed. A bulletin was also sent out to the province's pork industry workers.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is now leading the investigation with the help of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.

The pigs, the farm worker, and the family living on and running the farm have since recovered or are recovering, said agriculture Minister George Groeneveld. There have been no other reports of swine flu viruses in pigs and the flu has been confined to this particular operation, he added.

Groeneveld emphasized that there is no evidence that the flu virus can be contracted by eating pork or pork products, adding: "Pork is safe to eat. There is no risk to our food supply."

However, he said these findings could have an impact on Alberta's pork producers and the export market.

"Border closures are unwarranted but there have been some closures because we have the (swine flu) in Canada," Groeneveld said. "We'll see what transpires. I think we'll have to talk to our American counterparts and they have no problems, at this point, with the export of our pork."