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THE Asokoro District Hospital, National Influenza Diagnostic Laboratory in Abuja has been identified as a diagnostic center for Influenza A (H1N1) infection in humans. This development is based on the listing of Nigeria by the World Health Organisation as one of the countries capable of diagnosing the Influenza A(H1N1) infection in humans. The nation got the listing based on the global health body’s approval of countries with Polymerase Chain Reactor (PCR) capacity in place to diagnose the pathogen.
According to WHO guidelines, the National Influenza Centres (NICs) of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) and National Influenza Reference Laboratories in countries without NICs but which fulfill certain criteria and are having PCR capacity ready in place, could be approved for detection of the influenza.
Amongst these requirements are a score of 100 per cent in the last two or more WHO external quality assurance programme panels (EQAP2) or a score of 100 per cent in the last EQAP panel and a history of consistent correct results for earlier panels.
Current situation
Image
Prof. Oshotinmehin, Health Minister
As of Sunday May 3, 2009, there was no reported incidence or case of swine flu infection in the country, even as the WHO upgraded the influenza pandemic alert.
But, a second emergency meeting of stakeholders and partners on Influenza A(H1N1) held at the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, last week noted that so far Nigeria had not recorded any suspected case of the Influenza A(H1N1).
Meanwhile, a work plan has been developed for immediate deployment with regards to preparedness and response to influenza A(H1N1).
A statement issued from the Health Ministry said the National Epidemic Preparedness and Response Committee has been expanded to include critical Federal Ministries such as Agriculture, Information and Education.
As of 0600 GMT, 3 May 2009, 17 countries had officially reported 787 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection. Mexico had reported 506 confirmed human cases of infection, including 19 deaths. Reports say the higher number of cases from Mexico reflects ongoing testing of previously collected specimens.
The United States Government had reported 160 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.
Other countries that reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths were - Austria (1), Canada (70), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), France (2), Germany (6), Ireland (1), Israel (3), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Republic of Korea (1), Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (15).
On Wednesday April 29th, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 5, which is the second highest pandemic threat scale known. The reason for such a radical step was a direct response to confirmation of an outbreak of cases of swine flu (Influenza A or H1N1) in parts of Northern and Southern America.
Prior to this, never had the global health body declared a critical alert as high as Phase 5 since the warning system was introduced in 2005 in response to the avian (Bird Flu) influenza crisis. Phase 6 means a pandemic is under way.
Even as health officials across the world were gripped with fear that a global pandemic was in the making - no thanks to cases of swine flu in several countries, American health officials had already declared a public health emergency.
Global panic
Predictably, panic quickly set in as the fear of an impending impeding epidemic loomed. Countries such as Japan invoked travel bans against persons from Mexico - the suspected epicenter of the outbreak; whild several other countries are planning to quarantine air travelers presenting symptoms of the swine flu.
All this is going on despite the fact that the The World Health Organization (WHO) now openly states it is not possible to contain the spread of such infection through restricting travel or closing borders.
The WHO also directed that with effect from the 30th of April, the new influenza virus hitherto called swine flu had been renamed “Influenza A(H1N1)”.
WHO made this pronouncement ostensibly because the influenza is transmitted from humans to humans and to avoid any misunderstanding of the nature of the influenza as it relates to pigs and pork meat.
But the fear of a swine flu epidemic has become so palpable, leading a few countries to institute draconian measures. For instance, Egypt quickly ordered the slaughtering of the country’s 300,000 pigs, even when no single swine flu case has been reported there to date.
Not the first swine flu scare
Even though this isn’t the first time there would be public alert about a possible swine flu pandemic. The last time was in 1976, which, unfortunately, turned out to be a false alarm after it triggered a massive global vaccination campaign that ended disastrously.
While the 1976 swine fly pandemic never really occurred, paradoxically, more people died from the purported swine flu vaccine than from infection with swine flu virus itself.
A new strain
Regular swine flu is a contagious respiratory disease, caused by a type-A influenza virus that affects pigs. The current strain, A(H1N1), is a new variation of an H1N1 virus — which causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans — that also contains genetic material of bird and pig versions of the flu. Interestingly, the new extant had never before been seen in humans nor pigs.
As of May 1, 2009, 11 countries have officially reported 363 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection and 10 deaths in the entire world . Interestingly all deaths at this time wer from people born in Mexico.
Why Mexico?
Experts point to factors such as overcrowding, poor nutrition and overall poor immunity, that would ordinarily increase risk of death from almost any infection.
Scepticism
Quite a number of people are expressing sceptisicm about this latest flu pandemic scare. According to one particular observer, “there are no official reports of just who these people are that died. Are they elderly or infirm people, are they already chronically ill? Are they under five years old?
But serious questions are being raised about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu.
Factory farming
A theory being bandied around as to the cause of swine flu is known as factory farming.
The majority of U.S. pig farms now confine more than 5,000 animals each. With a group of 5,000 animals, if a novel virus shows up it will have more opportunity to replicate and potentially spread than in a group of 100 pigs on a small farm.
With massive concentrations of farm animals within which to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in North America seem to be on an evolutionary fast track, jumping and reassorting between species at an unprecedented rate.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/35051/80/
According to WHO guidelines, the National Influenza Centres (NICs) of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) and National Influenza Reference Laboratories in countries without NICs but which fulfill certain criteria and are having PCR capacity ready in place, could be approved for detection of the influenza.
Amongst these requirements are a score of 100 per cent in the last two or more WHO external quality assurance programme panels (EQAP2) or a score of 100 per cent in the last EQAP panel and a history of consistent correct results for earlier panels.
Current situation
Image
Prof. Oshotinmehin, Health Minister
As of Sunday May 3, 2009, there was no reported incidence or case of swine flu infection in the country, even as the WHO upgraded the influenza pandemic alert.
But, a second emergency meeting of stakeholders and partners on Influenza A(H1N1) held at the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, last week noted that so far Nigeria had not recorded any suspected case of the Influenza A(H1N1).
Meanwhile, a work plan has been developed for immediate deployment with regards to preparedness and response to influenza A(H1N1).
A statement issued from the Health Ministry said the National Epidemic Preparedness and Response Committee has been expanded to include critical Federal Ministries such as Agriculture, Information and Education.
As of 0600 GMT, 3 May 2009, 17 countries had officially reported 787 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection. Mexico had reported 506 confirmed human cases of infection, including 19 deaths. Reports say the higher number of cases from Mexico reflects ongoing testing of previously collected specimens.
The United States Government had reported 160 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.
Other countries that reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths were - Austria (1), Canada (70), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), France (2), Germany (6), Ireland (1), Israel (3), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Republic of Korea (1), Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (15).
On Wednesday April 29th, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 5, which is the second highest pandemic threat scale known. The reason for such a radical step was a direct response to confirmation of an outbreak of cases of swine flu (Influenza A or H1N1) in parts of Northern and Southern America.
Prior to this, never had the global health body declared a critical alert as high as Phase 5 since the warning system was introduced in 2005 in response to the avian (Bird Flu) influenza crisis. Phase 6 means a pandemic is under way.
Even as health officials across the world were gripped with fear that a global pandemic was in the making - no thanks to cases of swine flu in several countries, American health officials had already declared a public health emergency.
Global panic
Predictably, panic quickly set in as the fear of an impending impeding epidemic loomed. Countries such as Japan invoked travel bans against persons from Mexico - the suspected epicenter of the outbreak; whild several other countries are planning to quarantine air travelers presenting symptoms of the swine flu.
All this is going on despite the fact that the The World Health Organization (WHO) now openly states it is not possible to contain the spread of such infection through restricting travel or closing borders.
The WHO also directed that with effect from the 30th of April, the new influenza virus hitherto called swine flu had been renamed “Influenza A(H1N1)”.
WHO made this pronouncement ostensibly because the influenza is transmitted from humans to humans and to avoid any misunderstanding of the nature of the influenza as it relates to pigs and pork meat.
But the fear of a swine flu epidemic has become so palpable, leading a few countries to institute draconian measures. For instance, Egypt quickly ordered the slaughtering of the country’s 300,000 pigs, even when no single swine flu case has been reported there to date.
Not the first swine flu scare
Even though this isn’t the first time there would be public alert about a possible swine flu pandemic. The last time was in 1976, which, unfortunately, turned out to be a false alarm after it triggered a massive global vaccination campaign that ended disastrously.
While the 1976 swine fly pandemic never really occurred, paradoxically, more people died from the purported swine flu vaccine than from infection with swine flu virus itself.
A new strain
Regular swine flu is a contagious respiratory disease, caused by a type-A influenza virus that affects pigs. The current strain, A(H1N1), is a new variation of an H1N1 virus — which causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans — that also contains genetic material of bird and pig versions of the flu. Interestingly, the new extant had never before been seen in humans nor pigs.
As of May 1, 2009, 11 countries have officially reported 363 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection and 10 deaths in the entire world . Interestingly all deaths at this time wer from people born in Mexico.
Why Mexico?
Experts point to factors such as overcrowding, poor nutrition and overall poor immunity, that would ordinarily increase risk of death from almost any infection.
Scepticism
Quite a number of people are expressing sceptisicm about this latest flu pandemic scare. According to one particular observer, “there are no official reports of just who these people are that died. Are they elderly or infirm people, are they already chronically ill? Are they under five years old?
But serious questions are being raised about where this brand new, never before seen virus came from, especially since it cannot be contracted from eating pork products, and has never before been seen in pigs, and contains traits from the bird flu.
Factory farming
A theory being bandied around as to the cause of swine flu is known as factory farming.
The majority of U.S. pig farms now confine more than 5,000 animals each. With a group of 5,000 animals, if a novel virus shows up it will have more opportunity to replicate and potentially spread than in a group of 100 pigs on a small farm.
With massive concentrations of farm animals within which to mutate, these new swine flu viruses in North America seem to be on an evolutionary fast track, jumping and reassorting between species at an unprecedented rate.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/35051/80/