The Discovery of the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic - Mexico: April 17 New Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

FACTBOX - New flu strain is a genetic mix

Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:05pm EDT

(Reuters) - A deadly swine flu never seen before has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears of a possible pandemic. World Health Organization officials said the flu has killed about 60 Mexicans.

Here are some facts about the virus and flu viruses in general:

* The World Health Organization has confirmed at least some of the cases are a never-before-seen strain influenza A virus, carrying the designation H1N1.

* Although it's called swine flu, this new strain is not infecting pigs and has never been seen in pigs. The threat is person to person transmission.

* It is genetically different from the fully human H1N1 seasonal influenza virus that has been circulating globally for the past few years. The new flu virus contains DNA typical to avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses.

* The World Health Organization is concerned but says it is too soon to change the threat level warning for a pandemic-- a global epidemic of a new and dangerous flu.

* When a new strain of flu starts infecting people, and when it acquires the ability to pass from person to person, it can spark a pandemic. The last pandemic was in 1968 and killed about a million people.

* Seven people in the United States have been diagnosed with the new strain. All have recovered but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expects more cases.

* Flu viruses mutate constantly, which is why the flu vaccine is changed every year, and they can swap DNA in a process called reassortment. Most animals can get flu but viruses rarely pass from one species to another.

* From December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza were confirmed. All but one person had contact with pigs. There was no evidence of human-to-human transmission in those.

* Symptoms of swine flu in people are similar to those of seasonal influenza -- sudden onset of fever, coughing, muscle aches and extreme tiredness. Swine flu appears to cause more diarrhea and vomiting than normal flu.

* Seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally in an average year.

* In 1976 a new strain of swine flu started infecting people and worried U.S. health officials started widespread vaccination. More than 40 million people were vaccinated. But several cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe and sometime fatal condition that can be linked to come vaccines, caused the U.S. government to stop the program. The incident led to widespread distrust of vaccines in general.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE53N4ZC20090424

[Laidback Al]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Outbreak of influenza in the State of Chihuahua

The lateness of the influenza virus attacked the state of Chihuahua and which immediately ran to be alert and call this epidemic in the capital and Ju?rez was detected 28 cases, while the Ministry of Health reported that up to 11 April there were 16 cases in the state, of which more in Ojinaga.

According to the owner of Health Services, Octavio Martinez, there was a movement of the virus later from what was being presented, making it the most unusual and complicated solution.

From February to April, there has been no deaths in this virus, compared with more than 20 deaths in Mexico City and San Luis Potosi.
. . .
So far there have been more than these 28 cases, most of whom are in Ju?rez and the rest in the state capital.

http://tinyurl.com/czxa56

credits to AndyM

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Swine flu update
The Canadian Press

Toronto - Mexican authorities confirm they have found human infections with swine flu virus, a discovery that suggests their outbreak may be linked to the spread of swine flu in Texas and California.


Sources say Canada's National Microbiology laboratory found at least 16 positive cases of swine flu out of a shipment of 51 clinical specimens sent from Mexico to Winnipeg for testing.

The World Health Organization has activated its emergency operations centre and says it is considering whether it needs to raise the global pandemic alert level.

U.S. authorities have confirmed seven cases of swine flu infection over the past few days, but say all the patients have recovered.

But the news coming out of Mexico paints a different story, with the health minister in that country telling Mexican television there have been 45 deaths, including 16 directly related to the flu in question.

Reports suggest the majority of the cases are occurring in young, previously healthy adults in their mid 20s to mid 40s.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl says the organization is sending staff to Mexico to help authorities there get a better handle on the scope of the problem.

http://www.570news.com/more.jsp?content=20090424_133822_5040

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

60 Mexico flu deaths raise global epidemic fears
By MARK STEVENSON ?

MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexican authorities said 60 people may have died from a swine flu virus in Mexico, and world health officials worry it could unleash a global flu epidemic. Mexico City closed schools across the metropolis Friday in hopes of containing the outbreak that has sickened more than 900.

Scientists were trying to determine if the deaths involved the same new strain of swine flu that sickened seven people in Texas and California ? a disturbing virus that combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before.

The World Health Organization was looking closely at the 60 deaths ? most of them in or near Mexico's capital. It wasn't yet clear what flu they died from, but spokesman Thomas Abraham said "We are very, very concerned."

"We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human," he said. "It's all hands on deck at the moment."

WHO raised its internal alert system Friday, preparing to divert more money and personnel to dealing with the outbreak.

President Felipe Calderon cancelled a trip and met with his Cabinet to coordinate Mexico's response. The government has 500,000 flu vaccines and planned to administer them to health workers, the highest risk group.

There are no vaccines available for the general public in Mexico, and authorities urged people to avoid hospitals unless they had a medical emergency, since hospitals are centers of infection.

They also said Mexicans should refrain from customary greetings such as shaking hands or kissing cheeks, and authorities at Mexico City's international airport were questioning passengers to try to prevent anybody with possible influenza from boarding airplanes and spreading the disease.

But the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Americans need not avoid traveling to Mexico, as long as they take the usual precautions, such as frequent handwashing.

Mexico's Health Secretary, Jose Cordova, said only 16 of the deaths have been confirmed as the new swine flu strain, and that government laboratories were testing samples from 44 other people who died. At least 943 nationwide were sick from the suspected flu, the health department said.

"We certainly have 60 deaths that we can't be sure are from the same virus, but it is probable," Cordova said, adding that samples were sent to the CDC to look for matches with the virus that infected seven people in Texas and California.

Cordova called it a "new, different strain ... that originally came from pigs."

Epidemiologists are particularly concerned because the only people killed so far were normally less-vulnerable young people and adults. It's possible that more vulnerable populations ? infants and the aged ? had been vaccinated against other strains, and that those vaccines may be providing some protection.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said "at this point, we do not have any confirmations of swine influenza in Mexico" of the kind that sickened seven California and Texas residents. All seven recovered from symptoms that were like those of the regular flu, mostly involving fever, cough and sore throat, though some of the seven also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.

Scientists have long been concerned that a new flu virus could launch a pandemic, a worldwide spread of a killer disease. A new virus could evolve when different flu viruses infect a pig, a person or a bird, mingling their genetic material. The resulting hybrid could spread quickly because people would have no natural defenses against it.

The most notorious flu pandemic is thought to have killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19. Two other, less deadly flu pandemics struck in 1957 and 1968.

Nobody can predict when pandemics will happen. Scientists had been concerned about swine flu in 1976, for example, and some 40 million Americans were vaccinated. No flu pandemic ever appeared, but thousands of vaccinated people filed claims saying they'd suffered a paralyzing condition andother side effects from the shots.

In recent years, scientists have been particularly concerned about birds. There have been deaths from bird flu, mostly in Asia, but the virus has so far been unable to spread from person to person easily enough to touch off a pandemic.

Closing the schools across the metropolis of 20 million kept 6.1 million students home from day care centers through high schools, and thousands more were affected as colleges and universities closed down. Parents scrambled to juggle work and family concerns due to what local media said was the first citywide schools closure since Mexico City's devastating 1985 earthquake.

Authorities also advised capital residents not to go to work if they felt ill, and to wear surgical masks if they had to move through crowds. A wider shutdown ? perhaps including shutting down government offices ? was being considered.

"It is very likely that classes will be suspended for several days," Cordova said. "We will have to evaluate, and let's hope this doesn't happen, the need to restrict activity at workplaces."

Mexico's initial response in its overcrowded capital brought to mind other major outbreaks ? such as when SARS hit Asia. At its peak in 2003, Beijing was the hardest-hit city in the world. Schools, cinemas and restaurants were shuttered to prevent the spread the deadly respiratory virus, and thousands of people were quarantined at home.

In March 2008, Hong Kong ordered more than a half million young students to stay home for two weeks because of a flu outbreak. It was the first such closure in Hong Kong since the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Lillian Molina and other teachers at the Montessori's World preschool scrubbed down their empty classrooms with Clorox, soap and Lysol on Friday between fielding calls from worried parents. While the school has had no known cases among its students, Molina supported the government's decision to shutter classes, especially in preschools.

"It's great they are taking precautions," she said. "I think it's a really good idea."

Still, U.S. health officials said it's not yet a reason for alarm in the United States. The five in California and two in Texas have all recovered, and testing indicates some common antiviral medications seem to work against the virus.

Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe the new strain can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus. The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed U.S. cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

The U.S. cases are a growing medical mystery because it's unclear how they caught the virus. The CDC said none of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other.

CDC officials described the virus as having a unique combination of gene segments not seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.

Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.

The virus was first detected in two children in southern California ? a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County.

It's not known if the seasonal flu vaccine Americans got this winter protects against this type of virus. People should wash their hands and take other precautions, CDC officials said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gzz357patY4-QaJFvo9O95zMM_EQD97P0JAG0

[Shiloh]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Source: http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/593442.html

Google translation:

Influenza Ssa analyzes the evolution of the epidemic
It has scheduled a press conference this afternoon after the meeting that sotienen the Health Secretary and his team
El Universal
Mexico City Friday April 24 2009
13:38

Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, and his team are meeting behind closed doors where he discusses the evolution of the epidemic of influenza and could offer a press conference in the afternoon.

In the conclave, which began shortly before noon, featuring the Secretary of Health of Mexico, Armando Ortega Ahued, and the head office of the Secretariat of Health of Mexico, Roberto Martinez Poblete.

The General Directorate of Social Communication of the Ministry of Health (SSA) has reported that federal scheduled a press conference to report on the epidemic in the official residence of Los Pinos results of actions taken.

He reiterated that the studies conducted in Canada and United States indicate that the virus causing the epidemic is new and still unknown what kind, but that is different from seasonal influenza that causes, which would be shared.

[Shiloh]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

SOurce: http://www.oem.com.mx/elsoldetijuana/notas/n1136580.htm

Reportan en Oaxaca muerte de ni?a presuntamente por influenza
Organizaci?n Editorial Mexicana
24 de abril de 2009

Google translation;
Reported in Oaxaca girl allegedly killed by influenza
Mexican Editorial Organization
April 24, 2009

Editorial El Sol de Mexico

Oaxaca Oaxaca .- The Regional Hospital of the ISSSTE Juarez last night reported the death of a girl six years old, allegedly by influenza.

If confirmed, this case would be two deaths from SARS to be recorded in the state in less than ten days.

On April 13 last, at the Hospital General Aurelio Valdivieso Mar?a Adela passed away the smaller Guti?rrez Cruz, for influenza, as was recognized by the director of Health Protection of the state government, Miguel Angel Nakamura Lopez.

Last night, the hospital director of the ISSSTE, Luciano Tenorio Vasconcelos, acknowledged that another girl would have died, allegedly by the same evil, but are awaiting the results of studies to confirm, as they fear it is a "bacterial pneumonia" and not caused by a virus.

[tropical]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

#249:
"The government has 500.000 flu vaccines and planned to administer them to health workers"

Yes, of seasonal flu vaccines, or whatsoever, but sure not matched for this one new virus.

Psichological efforts ...

[FrenchieGirl]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Mexico orders to close public places throughout the country to battle deadly swine flu outbreak.

CDC: likely too late to contain swine flu outbreakd.

Source: BNO Breaking news on Twitter: http://twitter.com/breakingnews

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Flu outbreak could spark supply chain panic

Friday, April 24
Richard Edwards in risk management, supply chain management
It may have gone widely unreported in the western press but, at a time when the global economy is enduring the toughest of tough times, trouble could be brewing on the Mexican US border. In recent weeks a previously undetected form of flu has swept through Mexico City on its way to making its presence felt in California and Texas. To date, over 60 people have died, which should start alarm bells ringing far beyond the confines of Central America.

Supply chain risk is already topping the agenda in boardrooms across the globe, and the emergence of a potentially lethal strain of flu - the threat of which appeared to be receeding - could pose a whole new set of issues for procurement and supply chain operations from Mexico City to Melbourne.

The new flu strain has been linked to that found in swine, avian and human viruses - and its spread - as yet minimal - could soon create a crisis of such magnitude that even the credit crunch could soon be put firmly in the shade.

http://blog.procurementleaders.com/procurement-blog/2009/4/24/flu-outbreak-could-spark-supply-chain-panic.html

[FrenchieGirl]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

The United States government has reported 9 suspected cases of swine flu, according to the World Health Organization

Source: http://www.twitter.com/breakingnews

[tropical]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Mexico orders to close public places throughout the country to battle deadly swine flu outbreak.

CDC: likely too late to contain swine flu outbreakd.

Source: BNO Breaking news on Twitter: http://twitter.com/breakingnews

Precisely Frenchie, too late, as it would be too late for the other countries if the plagued country would not contain its borders ...

Have we here an capitulated effort of worldwide containment - that's why the borders weren't closed(?), and all this past under the radar directly to the Recomb. suggested number 6,
or there is not so late for the others(?)

[FrenchieGirl]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

World Health Organization says at least 854 people have been infected with swine flu in the Federal District of Mexico; 59 of them fatal.

http://www.twitter.com/breakingnews

[Farmer]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

World Health Organization says at least 854 people have been infected with swine flu in the Federal District of Mexico; 59 of them fatal.

http://www.twitter.com/breakingnews

If so, that is a 7% CFR.

Thanks for the notification of the Twitter site FrenchieGirl - very useful.

[FrenchieGirl]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Mexico Secretary for Health says number of infections and deaths have diminished in the last 20 hours. Original link in Spanish: http://www.terra.com.mx/articulo.asp...839&paginaid=1

Google translation

SSA announces emergency measures against swine influenza

Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova
Copyright ? AP

The young population is most vulnerable

Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, die to know emeregentes measures to tackle the outbreak of influenza

24/04/2009 | Notimex.-Mexico .- The Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos, from Los Pinos, reported that in the last 20 hours the number of deaths and infected by the outbreak of influenza [has diminished].

In this regard, it is clear that the record of 68 deaths related to this virus, of which only 20 are fully confirmed and the remaining are still under analysis.

The official said it has now been fully identified the type of virus that is causing this contingency, as a result of this situation and know the right medicine (Oseltamivir or Zanamivir) to address cases of infection.

At this point, C?rdova Villalobos said that the medicine has been approved by the World Health Organization and is the best way to tackle the virus, even more effective than the vaccine.

How they will be distributed through the health sector, free of charge and always on the proper prescription.

[rockyman]

Re: Mexico: Swine Flu & Other Respiratory Illnesses - Including Mexico City & Oaxaca

Fox News just ran a "Fox News Alert" (with the "dramatic music") about swine flu--saying all large public events in Mexico City have been canceled