Mexican Health Minister Comments

[sharon sanders]

via email - Bloomberg -

"...Mexican Health Minister Jose Cordova said 81 deaths in Mexico
may be linked to swine flu, an increase from the 68 possible
fatal cases the ministry announced yesterday.

The number of deaths in which swine flu was confirmed in
Mexico remains at 20, Cordova said today at a press conference
in Mexico City. Of 14 tissue samples tested from Mexico, half
were a genetic match with the swine flu reported in eight people
in California and Texas, the Atlanta-based Centers of Disease
Control and Prevention said yesterday.

Cordova said today that 1,324 patients are under
examination for possibly having the virus. No foreign government
has put a ban on travel to Mexico, Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz
said at the televised press conference...."

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: Mexican Health Minister Comments

I am trying to understand what has been confirmed about human swine flu cases in the United States and Mexico.

In the United States, I think there has been a total of 11 human cases in three states, California, Texas, and Kansas, that have been confirmed by local public health officials in concert with the CDC.

According to the above post only 7 of 14 tissue samples from Mexico (fourteen different people?) have been confirmed as swine flu that matches the samples processed by the CDC from human cases in United States. The post also states that only 20 deaths throughout Mexico have been officially attributed to swine flu, although as many as 61 other deaths may have been caused by swine flu, and presumably the sample are still being tested.

While the health minister notes that over 1300 people are under examination for swine flu, it is not clear that any of these have tested positive, or at least the minister has not admitted it.

How is a human swine flu case identified in Mexico, by laboratory testing or the presence of a constellation of clinical symptoms? In the United States it seems that case identification is solely based on laboratory results.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Mexican Health Minister Comments

The CDC arrived in Mexico today to assist -

Washington sent a team of epidemiologists to Mexico

Hay preocupaci?n en Washington y se ha enviado a expertos, dijo Anne Schuchat, del Centro para la Prevenci?n y Control de Enfermedades de EU.​

There is concern in Washington and has been sent to experts, said Anne Schuchat, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S..

​

Publicado: 25/04/2009 13:26​

M?xico, DF.​

Mexico, DF.

Un equipo estadunidense de expertos en epidemiolog?a lleg? a M?xico este s?bado tras confirmarse que algunos de los ocho casos de influenza detectados en California y Texas corresponden a la misma cepa del virus que ha matado a al menos 20 personas en este pa?s.​

A team of U.S. experts in epidemiology came to Mexico on Saturday following the confirmation that some of the eight flu cases detected in California and Texas are the same strain of virus that has killed at least 20 people in this country.

"Tenemos expertos que han llegado a M?xico", declar? Anne Schuchat, subdirectora de Ciencia y Salud P?blica del Centro para la Prevenci?n y Control de Enfermedades de Estados Unidos (CDC).​

"We have experts who have arrived in Mexico," said Anne Schuchat, deputy director for Science and Public Health, Center for Disease Prevention and Control of United States (CDC).

La v?spera, el doctor Richard Besser, director de la principal agencia federal encargada del monitoreo de padecimientos contagiosos, l (CDC por sus siglas en ingl?s), declar? que <q>Nuestra preocupaci?n ha crecido a la luz de lo que hemos aprendido.</q>​

The day before, Dr. Richard Besser, director of the principal federal agency responsible for monitoring infectious diseases, l (CDC for short), stated that <q>our concern has grown in the light of what we have learned.</q>

<q>Esto es algo sobre lo cual estamos muy preocupados y que tomamos muy en serio, por lo que estamos procediendo r?pidamente</q> .​

<q>
</q>
<q>
This is something we are very concerned and we take very seriously, so we are proceeding rapidly.</q>

Besser inform? que ocho de las 14 muestras de pacientes graves en M?xico analizadas hasta ahora tuvieron resultados positivos para la nueva e inusual cepa de influenza porcina H1N1, la misma que se ha detectado en los casos estadunidenses.​

Besser reported that eight of the 14 samples of severe patients in Mexico so far tested were positive for the new and unusual strain of swine influenza H1N1, which has been detected in U.S. cases.



http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2009/04/25/equipo-de-epidemiologos-estadunidenses-llega-a-mexico