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Influenza A: 147 cases and 15 deaths this winter
Virus. The H1N1 dominant and behaves as in 2009
PAULA BARQUET
Official figures show that so far this year 147 Uruguayan admitted to hospital with confirmed H1N1 pandemic virus. The 39% was in intensive care and 10% died. Most who died were obese.
The data are part of the last bulletin issued by the Division of Epidemiology, Ministry of Public Health (MSP), which was seen by El Pais. There relieves the weekly incidence of several diseases, including severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) caused by different viruses.
Of all viral infections, 60% were influenza A, and 84% of these cases confirmed the presence of the H1N1 pandemic virus.
Until August 13-date amounts to include in the newsletter MSP-15 people had died with confirmed H1N1. Of these, 12 had comorbidities, seven were obese, three suffered from chronic heart disease, four were immunosuppressed, three were diabetic, one had COPD and a recently deceased suffered from a chronic neurological disease. Three of the victims of this virus had no complicating factors.
On the other hand, H1N1 is lodged in people of all ages. Almost half were over 50 years, about 25% were 25 and 49 and children under four years were 20% of cases.
Compared to the previous newsletter you can see that only between 7 and August 13 there were 54 hospitalizations for H1N1 and six of the 15 deaths. Corresponds to the EW (SE) number 32, which apparently would be the peak flow this year.
Director of Epidemiology, Raquel Rosa, told El Pais that "the peak is a little run" with respect to 2010, when it recorded the highest number of cases in the SE 28. He estimated that about three weeks start to decrease the circulation of influenza.
In turn, stressed that H1N1 continues to exhibit the same behavior during the 2009 pandemic, especially attacking populations of extreme ages, and differing from the endemic virus by a special affinity with certain risk factors such as obesity and cardiac pathologies.
"It would be too advanced" to draw conclusions about a possible major impact of the virus this year than in 2010. Anyway, epidemiologist acknowledged that "the feeling is that last year was more benevolent and this year found more susceptible." This explains, among other things, a lower level of vaccination, with about 100,000 doses less applicable.
Different experts have explained that the MSP includes confirmed cases and suspects, which implies an underestimation. Since many hospitals have reported cases of patients with "symptoms of H1N1" that could not be confirmed because it did not take the test before death. In this regard, Rosa said the purpose of these newsletters is "to identify the trends."
EMERGENCY. Meanwhile, emergency phones that make up the Chamber of Emergency has been an increase of between 38 and 42% of consultations for respiratory infections compared to 2010.
Enrique D'Andrea, president of the Chamber, told El Pais that most queries are infections involved children. He reported that despite the intense cold of the weekend, there was an increase in inquiries.
In addition, emergency phones continue to meet weekly with officials from ASSE and MSP for solutions to delays for patients entering hospitals.
D'Andrea said that despite "goodwill" shown by ASSE, and some concrete steps toward the organization of emergency hospitals, the problem still is "not settled."
The goal set for winter 2012 is that the delay does not exceed 10 minutes, as in other countries.
H1N1 virus infection
The proportion of income to intensive care units for severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) has increased, and since mid-July (EW 28) has been higher than the same period of 2010.
According to monitoring visits for respiratory causes that perform emergency phones, which reflects the Epidemiology Division of the MSP, since mid-June (EW 24) observed an increase in queries.
The latest epidemiological bulletin concludes that the MSP predominant virus until the first days of August are the H1N1 pandemic and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which mainly affects children.
So far in 2011, confirmed 147 cases of SARI for Pandemic Influenza H1N1, of whom 15 died. Obesity is the most common risk factor, although three of those killed had no comorbidity. H1N1 affects all age groups.
El Pais Digital