Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Due to Swine Flu - 60 Others Being Investigated

[KBD]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

what proof is there that what's circulating in Mexico is an aberrant H1N1 of porcine origine?

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

We may get "official" answers at the US CDC media briefing this afternoon at 3:30 EST.

From last article....people in Mexico have been infected and 60 have died from suspected swine flu

.

[HenryN]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

what proof is there that what's circulating in Mexico is an aberrant H1N1 of porcine origine?

Canada and the CDC have the proof. They just haven't released it. Same is true for additional cases in the US.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

Mexico Flu Deaths So Far Not Seen Bird-Flu Related

MEXICO CITY -- The death of at least 20 people in Mexico from an unknown strain of influenza hasn't been linked to the dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu, the World Health Organization said Friday.

"We are still expecting more details but so far we have no indications that this is avian flu," WHO spokesperson Sari Setiogi told Dow Jones Newswires, speaking by telephone from Geneva.

"We have been in constant contact with the Mexican government and from what we know now this is not the H5N1 strain but caused by the H1N1 strain, which is part of the normal influenza A, but the severe form of influenza," she said.

Ms. Setiogi said that although this particular strain of influenza is known to have caused fatalities "it's uncommon and doesn't happen frequently," especially not so late in the year. Mexico's season for influenza A normally ends in December, she added.

Mexico's government has ordered all schools in the greater capital area closed Friday amid the growing influenza epidemic and several rumors circulated in the capital late Thursday that this could be a case of the dangerous high-pathogenic strain of bird flu that has led to deaths in humans.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told local press that preliminary test results from scientists in the U.S. and Canada showed it wasn't avian influenza, and has warned citizens to take extreme caution and avoid greeting others by shaking hands, cheek kisses or any other unnecessary physical contact.

The WHO, in a separate report Friday, said hundreds of cases of swine flu have been reported in Mexico and the U.S. in recent weeks including 57 cases of suspected deaths in the capital area, which is home to about 20 million people.

Setiogi said the WHO is "on alert" about the growing influenza outbreak in Mexico and expects the number of cases in both Mexico and other countries in the region to grow in the coming weeks.

"We are right now on alert and monitoring the developments of this unusual influenza activity. We are still gathering information while the Mexican authorities are doing their investigations, but we are expecting more cases to be reported," she said.

Mexico was declared free of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu several years ago, but the current influenza outbreak has stirred speculation as to how it emerged in the first place.

Local newspapers reported that at least 20 people have already died from the influenza, while some 120 people have been hospitalized within the greater Mexico City region.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124058255179552887.html

[sharon sanders]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

There is no confirmation yet.

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

WHO says it is worried about suspicious flu activity, sending help to Mexico


TORONTO — The World Health Organization says it is very concerned about mounting evidence of suspicious influenza activity in Mexico and the southwestern part of the United States.

Mexico's health minister has confirmed that some of the cases of illness there were caused by a swine flu virus that is responsible for at least seven human cases in the United States.

A WHO spokesperson says the emergency committee of experts that would determine whether to raise the global pandemic alert level has been informed WHO may call them into action

Gregory Hartl says the WHO is sending staff to Mexico to help in the investigations and try to get a better picture of what is going on.

Hartl says the WHO is extremely concerned because there is evidence of what looks like a novel flu virus spreading in five places - the two U.S. states and three parts of Mexico.

He says WHO is in continuous contact with the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5g53QvII5VCOl3YBgS4czWlyxl2Ag

[Blue]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

Canada and the CDC have the proof. They just haven't released it. Same is true for additional cases in the US.

This looks to be very transmissible. What happens if inadvertently it should be brought to say, Egypt or Indonesia by a traveler? Just wondering...

[gsgs]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

> WASHINGTON (AFP) ? US medical authorities expressed strong concern Friday
> about an unprecedented multi-strain swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 60 people
> in Mexico and infected seven people in the United States.

AFP can't be trusted

> "This is the first time that we've seen an avian strain, two swine strains and a human strain,"
> said Daigle, adding that the virus had influenza strains from European and Asian swine,
> but not from North American swine.

so, from where is HA then ?

> Referring to "swine flu cases that have broken out in the United States in Mexico,"
> WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib

so, what exactly did she say ?

> but caused by the H1N1 strain

[sharon sanders]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

Confirma SSA, 16 muertes por la gripe porcina

El titular de la dependencia, Jos? ?ngel C?rdova, se?al? que al menos 60 personas se encuentran en investigaci?n.



Ciudad de M?xico.- .-El secretario de Salud Federal, Jos? ?ngel C?rdova inform? que el virus de la influenza ha dejado 16 personas muertas ya confirmados y 60 en investigaci?n.
En entrevista para Milenio noticias el funcionario dijo que el virus ? que en a?os anteriores hab?an sido casos aislados- se adquiere por contacto f?cilmente y la peligrosidad es menos que la de gripe aviar.
Dijo adem?s que este virus nada tiene que ver con la carne de puerco ni con tener animales en casa.
El secretario de Salud inform? que se aplicaron 19 millones de vacunas en los meses de octubre noviembre y diciembre del a?o pasado.
Referente a los estados dijo que como los casos son aislados no se tomaron medidas m?s agresivas.
C?rdova Villalobos mencion? que para las personas que vienen del exterior se las dar? la informaci?n pertinente en aeropuertos y centrales de autobuses as? como revisi?n m?dica.
Anunci? adem?s que ser? en el transcurso del d?a cuando se den las indicaciones para el fin de semana.

http://www.milenio.com/node/204265

[sharon sanders]

Re: Swine flu kills 60 in Mexico, moves to US: WHO

English version of post #24 above -

SSA confirmed 16 deaths from the swine flu

The head of the agency, José Ángel Córdova, said that at least 60 people are under investigation.



Mexico City .- .- The Federal Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova reported that influenza virus has left 16 people already confirmed dead and 60 in research.
Millennium News in an interview for the official said that the virus - which in previous years had been isolated were purchased easily and is less dangerous than the bird flu.
He also said that this virus has nothing to do with pork or having pets at home.
The Secretary of Health reported that 19 million vaccines used in the months of October, November and December last year.
Referring to statements said that the cases are isolated and were not taken more aggressive measures.
Cordova Villalobos said that for people who come from abroad are given the relevant information in airports and bus and medical examination.
He also announced that it will be the day when they give directions for the weekend.

[sharon sanders]

Re: Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Due to Swine Flu - 60 Others Being Investigated

no link - via email -

Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Tied to Flu Outbreak, Cordova Says
2009-04-24 15:20:15.753 GMT


By Andres R. Martinez
April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s government has confirmed
16 people have died from swine flu and another 60 deaths are
being investigated for ties to the outbreak, Health Minister
Jose Cordova said in an interview on Milenio television.
The majority of reported cases have occurred in Mexico City
and nearby areas, he said.

[gsgs]

Re: Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Due to Swine Flu - 60 Others Being Investigated

> The unique strain of swine flu found in seven people in California in
> Texas has been connected to the deadly flu that has broken
> out in Mexico, killing as many as 60 people, NBC News has confirmed.

NBC News, can they be trusted



what confusion to expect in a real pandemic

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Due to Swine Flu - 60 Others Being Investigated

This should be in a WHO thread, but this thread seems to be the best choice.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Swine flu outbreak raises pandemic fears

April 24, 2009 9:15 AM
PARIS - An outbreak of deadly swine flu in Mexico and the United States has raised the specter of a new virus against which much of humanity would have little or no immunity.


About 950 cases and 60 suspect deaths have been reported in Mexico, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the United States seven people have been infected.


The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said that the infection of humans with an influenza 'A' virus of animal origins is a concern "because of the risk, albeit small, that this could represent the appearance of viruses with pandemic potential."


First identified in 1930, swine flu is a common and sometimes fatal respiratory disease in pigs caused by type A influenza virus.


The disease does not normally spread to humans, though infections are sporadically recorded, especially among people who have been directly exposed to pigs.


The recent cases in Mexico and the United States, however, appear to have spread through human contact.


From December 2005 through February 2009, only 12 cases of swine influenza were reported in the United States. In 1988 a pregnant woman died after contact with sick pigs.


In 1976, swine flu at an U.S. military base at Fort Dix, New Jersey killed one soldier. Four were hospitalized with pneumonia. At first, experts feared the strain was related to the Spanish Flu of 1918, which killed millions, but the strain never spread beyond the base.


Swine and human H1N1 viruses are not the same, which means that seasonal flu vaccines for humans will not work against the animal variant.


The WHO has identified swine influenza as a potential source of human flu pandemics, which occur roughly every two or three decades. The last true pandemic — "Hong Kong flu" — occurred more than 40 years ago.


In the past, swine flu has rarely been fatal for humans. But scientists fear that a new virus mixing animals strains — from birds, pigs or both — with existing human strains could create a superbug that could sweep the globe and kill millions, as happened nearly a century ago.


Swine flu symptoms include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people who have contracted the virus report runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.


The disease is not transmitted by eating properly cooked pork, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cooking to an internal temperature of 71 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Fahrenheit) kills swine virus, as it does other bacteria and viruses.


Worries about a flu pandemic have focused in recent years on the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed around 250 people since 2003, mainly in Southeast Asia, according to the WHO.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Swine+outbreak+raises+pandemic+fears/1530743/story.html

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Due to Swine Flu - 60 Others Being Investigated

Swine Flu, Mexico Lung Illness Heighten Pandemic Risk (Update2)

By Jason Gale and Tom Randall

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Disease trackers are asking U.S. hospitals to help follow a new strain of swine flu and are trying to determine whether it’s related to hundreds of illnesses and 57 deaths in Mexico.

A previously unseen variant of H1N1 swine influenza has sickened at least seven people in California and Texas, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. The World Health Organization said 57 people died among more than 800 in the Mexico City region who developed flu-like symptoms in the past month.

Global health experts are studying whether the U.S. and Mexico illnesses pose a threat of pandemic, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. U.S. hospitals today were asked to collect samples from patients with flu-like symptoms, said William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.

“This has a sense of urgency about it,” Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt, said in a telephone interview today. “They are asking us who work in hospitals to go to our emergency rooms and our pediatric wards to gather specimens and start testing them.”

Investigators haven’t found a link between the California and Texas cases, indicating the virus may be circulating elsewhere, Schaffner said. CDC disease experts will continue investigating whether the outbreaks have a common source, he said. The agency also will host a conference call today with experts, he said.

Threat of Pandemic

Flu can spread quickly when a new strain emerges, because no one has natural immunity. The so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people, experts said.

“We are taking this very seriously,” Gregory Hartl, spokesman for WHO, the Geneva-based United Nations agency, said in a telephone interview today. “We have to get laboratory confirmation of what it is. We need to know how widespread it is.” The Mexico illnesses are affecting “otherwise healthy adults,” Hartl said.

Pandemic Potential

“The infection of humans with a novel influenza-A virus infection of animal origins, as has happened here, is of concern because of the risk, albeit small, that this could represent the appearance of viruses with pandemic potential,” the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, based in Stockholm, said in a statement.

There’s no evidence a pandemic strain is evolving in the U.S., the European agency said. The CDC reached the same conclusion.

“We don’t think this is a time for major concern,” Anne Schuchat, CDC’s director of respiratory diseases, told reporters on a conference call yesterday.

Authorities in Mexico asked the Public Health Agency of Canada to help identify what’s causing the lung infection that has also spread to five health-care workers, the Ottawa-based agency said in an e-mail yesterday. Mexico Health Minister Jose Cordova canceled classes in Mexico City today and recommended citizens avoid public places.

Canada’s National Microbiology Lab received 51 specimens from Mexico on April 22 and will test them for pathogens. Tests in Mexico found patients had the H1N1 and type-B influenza strains and the parainfluenza virus, the agency said.

Pigs Susceptible

Three main human flu strains -- H3N2, H1N1 and type-B -- cause 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year globally, according to the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency. Pigs also are susceptible to flu, including the H1N1 subtype.

“It will be critical to determine whether the strains of H1N1 isolated from patients in Mexico are also swine flu,” Donald Low, an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, told the Canadian Press.

The CDC is discussing its cases and viruses with Mexico and the Pan American Health Organization, Schuchat said.

“At this point, we do not have any confirmation of swine influenza in Mexico,” Schuchat said.

Symptoms of the illnesses in Mexico include high fever, headache, eye pain, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue with rapid progression of symptoms to severe respiratory distress in about five days, the Canadian agency said. A “high proportion” of cases require mechanical respiration, it said.

U.S. Sickness

The four males and three females in San Diego County and Imperial County, California, and in San Antonio, diagnosed with swine flu had mild flu-like symptoms. The patients, 9 to 54 years old, included a father-daughter pair and two boys attending the same Texas school.

The virus is contagious and spreading from human to human, the CDC said in a statement on its Web site. The patients began feeling sick from March 28 to April 19. All have recovered and only one was hospitalized, according to the CDC. None had direct contact with pigs.

“That’s unusual,” Schuchat said. “We don’t know yet how widely it’s spreading and we certainly don’t know the extent of the problem.”

As precaution, CDC is preparing the virus as a vaccine seed strain that could be used to make immunizations, she said.

The swine flu virus contains four different gene segments representing both North American swine and avian influenza, human flu and a Eurasian swine flu, CDC said.

Not Seen Before

“We haven’t seen this strain before, but we haven’t been looking as intensively as we are these days,” Schuchat said. “It’s very possible that this is something new that hasn’t been happening before.”

Swine influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type-A influenza that regularly causes outbreaks among the animals, according to the CDC. Swine flu doesn’t normally infect people, though human infections do occur and cases of human-to- human spread of swine flu viruses have been documented.

Infection in pigs is regarded as especially problematic because of the risk of “reassortment” to produce a new virus, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said.

“These mild U.S. cases infected with a novel influenza are not reflecting the emergence of a pandemic strain, but they at least raise the possibility that there has been limited human- to-human transmission,” the health agency said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net; Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 24, 2009 12:08 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=ajqkJeGBOFsM&refer=canada#

[rockyman]

Re: Mexico Confirms 16 Deaths Due to Swine Flu - 60 Others Being Investigated

MSNBC running as main story...with new details:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30386163/