FL: 12 with flu have died since October (Gainesville)

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.gainesville.com/article/2...says#gsc.tab=0

12 with flu have died since October, Shands says (Gainesville, FL)
By Kristine Crane
Staff writer
Published: Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 5:52 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 5:52 p.m.

Twelve people with influenza have died at UF Health Shands Hospital since late October, with more than 150 people admitted with the virus -- marking a striking rise in the severity of cases, according to a UF media release Thursday.

Five of the people who died were under the age of 40, which also marks an unusual trend, since flu-related deaths typically hit the elderly...

[NS1]

Re: FL: 12 with flu have died since October (Gainesville)

News story
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<tr style="float: center;"><td style="font-size: 140%; font-weight: bold;">12 with flu have died since October, Shands says
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<tr style="float: center;"><td style="font-size: 90%;">Five of the people who died were under the age of 40, which also marks an unusual trend, since flu-related deaths typically hit the elderly.
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<tr style="float: center; font-size: 60%;"><td>By Kristine Crane
Staff writer</td></tr>
<tr style="float: center; font-size: 60%;"><td><a href="http://www.gainesville.com/" target="_blank">The Gainesville Sun</a></td></tr>
<tr style="float: center; font-size: 60%;"><td>Published: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 5:52 p.m.</td></tr>
<tr style="float: center; font-size: 60%;"><td>Last Modified: Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 5:52 p.m.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 100%;">'Paul Myers, administrator of the Alachua County Health Department:

?Clearly there is something that is different about the virus that is causing the severity in these patients.?'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 100%;">'Shands did not have information on how many of the 150 admitted patients had received the vaccine, although Myers speculated it was very few since the vaccine is effective.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 100%;">'Myers encourages everyone to get the vaccine, called Tamiflu, especially since tests at the UF Emerging Pathogens Institute indicate that it is effective against this flu strain.'</span></div>
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The limits of testing and the limits of accurate information transfer are being tested at this moment of the 2013-2014 pH1N1 epidemic. If the virus is clearly different and the vaccine is clearly unchanged from 2009, then what are the circumstances around which the unchanged vaccine will test as effective against the changed virus?

Have properly handled samples from the current cases been under Hemagglutinin Inhibition assay against sera from ferrets challenged only with the vaccine strain, CA/07?

[tetano]

Re: FL: 12 with flu have died since October (Gainesville)

Doctors Concerned Over Severity of Flu Cases

?Our doctors are coming to us and saying , you know, these folks are really sick, and we need to let know folks out there that they need to be getting vaccine. So part of the objective here is to tell people, you know, the flu that?s circulating this year is pretty nasty. You really need to get a flu shot, we?re not kidding,? he says.

Morris says of the 12 Shands patients who died of H1N1, five of them were under the age of 40. He says people need to realize that hospitals aren?t required to report flu activity to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so flu in Florida may be more widespread than local headlines suggest. In early January, the Brevard County Department of Health reported a woman in her 30?s died from an H1N1 infection.

http://www.wmfe.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=15533&news_iv_ctrl=1041

[NS1]

Re: FL: 12 with flu have died since October (Gainesville)

Doctors Concerned Over Severity of Flu Cases

?Our doctors are coming to us and saying , you know, these folks are really sick, and we need to let know folks out there that they need to be getting vaccine. So part of the objective here is to tell people, you know, the flu that?s circulating this year is pretty nasty. You really need to get a flu shot, we?re not kidding,? he says.

Morris says of the 12 Shands patients who died of H1N1, five of them were under the age of 40. He says people need to realize that hospitals aren?t required to report flu activity to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so flu in Florida may be more widespread than local headlines suggest. In early January, the Brevard County Department of Health reported a woman in her 30?s died from an H1N1 infection.

http://www.wmfe.org/site/News2?page=...s_iv_ctrl=1041

The most current genetic sequence on file for Florida carries a Novel Hemagglutinin with a Neuraminidase segment that shares key homology to the currently circulating High Intensity genetics in Texas.

A total of 40 HA and NA segment genetic changes have accumulated onto this current circulating virus in Florida since the initial 2009 selection of the H1N1 attenuated vaccine component.

That 2009 virus remains the basis of the H1N1 vaccine for this 5th season (California/07/2009).