San Diego County - eight confirmed. California 15 confirmed
San Diego County - eight confirmed. California 15 confirmed
Can't edit thread title..
Conflicting reports, 14 or 15 confirmed..
Also, I somehow missed this thread started already on California's 14 cases.
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101456
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http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/30/1n30flu235249-pandemic-imminent/
Pandemic 'imminent'
Calm urged as swine flu spreads to 9 nations
By Mike Lee Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. April 30, 2009
Everyone from President Barack Obama to San Diego County's medical leaders urged calm yesterday as the World Health Organization declared an “imminent” swine flu pandemic and told nations to gird for a long battle.
“All of humanity is under threat,” Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, said during a news conference in Geneva. The agency raised its alert level to Phase 5 – one shy of the top rank – as the disease claimed its first victim in the United States and spread to at least nine countries.
Chan said health officials are trying to secure more antiviral drugs, while governments across the globe ordered the killing of pigs, closure of more schools and stricter airport screenings.
San Diego County logged three more swine flu patients, bringing the total to eight confirmed – the most of any county in the state. It also reported seven probable cases.
County epidemiologists are working with San Diego State University to investigate the illness of a female student, and with the Medical Examiner's Office to analyze the flu-related death of a 62-year-old woman at a La Jolla hospital.
Yesterday afternoon, the county announced a local health emergency designed to cut red tape and allow the region to seek more federal and state money for its swine flu efforts. California made a similar move a day earlier.
The emergency status is a precautionary strategy, said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer. “We don't want people to freak out,” she said.
Wooten asked people to adopt “practical preventive measures” such as frequent hand washing and covering sneezes.
Residents shouldn't fret about the World Health Organization's alert level, said Dr. Gonzalo Ballon-Landa, an epidemiologist and chairman of the San Diego Group to Eradicate Resistant Microorganisms.
“We are prepared,” he said. “The main problem is the fear and the hysteria in the population that is being created by the lack of understanding.” First death in U.S.
The number of verified swine flu cases in California has reached 15, along with 29 suspected cases. Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan and Nevada confirmed infections yesterday, bringing the national total to 94 confirmed cases in 11 states.
Because figures are revised around the clock, they could conflict with those from the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provide less-frequent updates.
At the White House, Obama said his thoughts and prayers were with the family of a nearly 23-month-old Mexican boy who died in Houston. Public health experts in Texas said the child had traveled with his family from Mexico to Brownsville on April 4 and was taken to Houston after falling ill. He died Monday night.
Texas suspended all after-school sports competitions and shut down schools that serve more than 130,000 students.
Swine flu also penetrated the military yesterday.
The Pentagon confirmed that a Marine at the Twentynine Palms base in San Bernardino County had contracted the disease. The patient, now recovering, is under quarantine along with about 30 other Marines who might have been infected by him.
The current swine flu strain may have sickened thousands of people, mostly in Mexico. That pales in comparison to the roughly 36,000 who die each year in the United States from the common seasonal influenza.
But infectious-disease experts are alarmed by the rapid spread and distinct composition of this swine flu strain, which melds swine, bird and human viruses.
Abroad, Germany joined the expanding list of nations where the virus has hit. Others with confirmed swine flu patients are Austria, Britain, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and Spain.
New safety measures
The growing wave of infections prompted new precautions around the world.
In Egypt, health officials mandated the slaughter of 300,000 hogs, even though transmission of the disease hasn't been linked to pigs.
At airports from Japan to Turkey, thermal cameras were trained on airline passengers to see if any were feverish. And Lebanon discouraged traditional Arab peck-on-the-cheek greetings, even though no one there has come down with the virus.
Cuba and Argentina have banned flights to Mexico, while the CDC has advised Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico.
Some news organizations have reported that up to 6,000 Mexicans are showing signs of swine flu, but government health officials there continued to report about 2,500 confirmed and suspected infections.
Mexico's leaders ordered a stop to noncritical services at government offices and private businesses yesterday. They also shut down all street-side food stands in the capital city.
The government had already shuttered schools nationwide, closed public venues and limited restaurants in Mexico City to providing only takeout orders.
Details started to emerge about how the swine flu started spreading. By March 9, symptoms had appeared in the Mexican state of Veracruz, where pig farming is a vital industry in mountain hamlets and where small clinics provide the only health care.
The earliest confirmed case was there: a 5-year-old boy who was one of hundreds of people in the town of La Gloria whose flu symptoms left them struggling to breathe.
Days later, a door-to-door tax inspector in the neighboring state of Oaxaca was hospitalized with acute respiratory problems. She infected 16 hospital workers before becoming Mexico's first person to die from swine flu.
In Tijuana, residents lived through the second straight day of schools being closed and public events canceled. Though traffic was lighter than usual along major thoroughfares downtown, more people could be seen walking, most of them wearing surgical masks. Businesses in the area, particularly restaurants, were virtually empty.
Radio stations delivered contrasting programming: AM stations gave solemn updates about the swine flu while disc jockeys on FM stations, with upbeat voices, suggested fun activities to do at home to the rhythms of pop tunes. Local concerns In San Diego, SDSU officials said the student possibly ailing from swine flu wouldn't be allowed back on campus until she had fully recovered. The results of her swine flu test are expected before the end of the week.
Classes remain in session, and the university's administrators said they haven't heard about any illness among people who were exposed to the sick student.
For some students, yesterday's announcement underscored the importance of measures they already were taking to avoid getting sick.
“I've been washing my hands a lot more, and my mom has been calling me every single morning telling me to wash my hands and take my vitamins,” said SDSU sophomore Jessica Chavez, 20.
Amid the whirlwind of negative developments, San Diego received a bit of welcome news: A dozen cruise ships will dock at the downtown port over the next two weeks – starting today – instead of stopping at coastal cities along Mexico.
The thousands of tourists they'll bring are expected to spend as much as $12 million, according to the Cruise Lines International Association.
Another positive development took place at Christ the Cornerstone Academy in Mira Mesa. The private school reopened yesterday after a one-day closing caused by fears of a swine flu outbreak.
Global preparedness
In Geneva, Chan said the WHO was working at a “breakneck pace” to understand and communicate details about the disease. That effort includes talking with drug makers about how quickly they can ramp up production of antiviral medications such as Tamiflu.
She said Roche, which owns the rights to Tamiflu, has offered its license to manufacturers in several countries in case global production needs to be kicked into high gear. Chan cited special concern about poor countries that, unlike the United States, don't have ready doses of flu-fighting medications.
Overall, she said, the world is better prepared for this likely pandemic than any other in history.
“This is an opportunity for global solidarity as we look for responses . . . that benefit all countries,” Chan said.
Staff writers Mark Arner, Keith Darcé, Karen Kucher and Ron Powell, freelancer Omar Millán González and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570;
mike.lee@uniontrib.com
Mike Lee: (619) 542-4570;
