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Melbourne Lab, Doctors Find Swine Flu Infections Are Abating
By Jason Gale
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Less than two months after a surge in swine flu cases in Melbourne helped persuade the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic, infections are abating in Australia?s second-largest city.
The frequency of flu-like illnesses diagnosed by the city?s doctors fell by a third last week from the previous week and is the lowest since late May, according to a report yesterday by the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. The pandemic H1N1 strain accounted for all flu viruses tested by the government lab last week.
Melbourne was one of the cities hardest hit by H1N1 outside North America when the WHO declared the first influenza pandemic in 41 years on June 11. The decline in cases is also being reflected in a drop in hospitalizations for flu and may mean that Melbourne has seen the worst of the current wave of infections, said Vincent Pellegrino, an intensive care doctor at the city?s Alfred Hospital.
?We do seem to have passed the worst phase,? Pellegrino said in a telephone interview yesterday. Across Victoria, 26 people are hospitalized for flu, Australia?s health department said yesterday, down from 34 a week earlier and 59 on July 9.
The influenza surveillance network for Victoria, a state the size of Kansas, diagnosed flu-like illness in 13.2 of every 1,000 patients seen in Melbourne in the week ended July 26, the lab report showed. That?s down from 19.9 per 1,000 a week earlier and a peak of 27.2 per 1,000 on June 28.
The network comprises 87 general practitioners across the state who test a portion of their patients to give authorities an indication of flu activity in the community.
?This wave has peaked and it?s on the way out,? said Heath Kelly, head of epidemiology at the reference laboratory in Melbourne, in an interview yesterday.
It?s too early to predict whether the pandemic virus will continue circulating at lower levels for the remainder of Melbourne?s winter and whether seasonal flu strains reemerge in the city of 3.8 million people, Kelly said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 29, 2009 10:30 EDT
Melbourne Lab, Doctors Find Swine Flu Infections Are Abating
By Jason Gale
July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Less than two months after a surge in swine flu cases in Melbourne helped persuade the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic, infections are abating in Australia?s second-largest city.
The frequency of flu-like illnesses diagnosed by the city?s doctors fell by a third last week from the previous week and is the lowest since late May, according to a report yesterday by the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. The pandemic H1N1 strain accounted for all flu viruses tested by the government lab last week.
Melbourne was one of the cities hardest hit by H1N1 outside North America when the WHO declared the first influenza pandemic in 41 years on June 11. The decline in cases is also being reflected in a drop in hospitalizations for flu and may mean that Melbourne has seen the worst of the current wave of infections, said Vincent Pellegrino, an intensive care doctor at the city?s Alfred Hospital.
?We do seem to have passed the worst phase,? Pellegrino said in a telephone interview yesterday. Across Victoria, 26 people are hospitalized for flu, Australia?s health department said yesterday, down from 34 a week earlier and 59 on July 9.
The influenza surveillance network for Victoria, a state the size of Kansas, diagnosed flu-like illness in 13.2 of every 1,000 patients seen in Melbourne in the week ended July 26, the lab report showed. That?s down from 19.9 per 1,000 a week earlier and a peak of 27.2 per 1,000 on June 28.
The network comprises 87 general practitioners across the state who test a portion of their patients to give authorities an indication of flu activity in the community.
?This wave has peaked and it?s on the way out,? said Heath Kelly, head of epidemiology at the reference laboratory in Melbourne, in an interview yesterday.
It?s too early to predict whether the pandemic virus will continue circulating at lower levels for the remainder of Melbourne?s winter and whether seasonal flu strains reemerge in the city of 3.8 million people, Kelly said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Gale in Singapore at j.gale@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: July 29, 2009 10:30 EDT