Re: Ukraine- Pandemic Influenza - Ministry of Health says 634,000 cases & 95 deaths
Re: Ukraine- Pandemic Influenza - Ministry of Health says 634,000 cases & 95 deaths
November 5, 2009
:smartass:
After bne's initial scepticism about the severity of the flu outbreak in Ukraine, things have taken a turn for the worse.
It seems the virus that's on the loose in Ukraine has mutated into a more virulent form, says the World Heath Organisation (WHO). bne was commissioned to write a report on the bird flu virus a few years ago by the WHO and attended the scientific conferences in the Hague ahead of the political meetings to coordinate a response a few months later in Geneva.
The scientists then warned that the danger of these viruses was not the current form, which can kill though isn't particularly lethal, but the fact that this family of "animal" viruses are very unstable and can easily mutate into more contagious and deadly forms; in order to jump across the species divide, the virus has to be almost by definition unstable if it is to be able to adapt itself to attack first an avian or porcine host and then move into humans. Once in humans, the virus continues to adapt and while the avian version never changed into a form that did much damage, the porcine virus seems to have mutated into a more contagious form in Ukraine, albeit not particularly deadly yet.
The WHO said on Wednesday, November 4 that the strain of the porcine virus affecting Ukraine "has been caused by the H1N1 pandemic flu subtype."
"Laboratory testing in Ukraine has confirmed pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in samples taken from patients in two of the most affected regions," the WHO said in a statement, reported newswires. "As the pandemic virus has rapidly become the dominant influenza strain worldwide, it can be assumed that most cases of influenza in Ukraine are caused by the H1N1 virus."
Ukraine's health ministry reported on the same day that the death toll had risen to 81 as of this week and Ukrainian chief public health official Oleksandr Bilovol said up to 12m citizens could be infected with the virus by the end of next year. "Taking into account susceptibility to the pandemic flu virus, there is a general indicator of the number of patients, which we have calculated based on WHO recommendations and which could amount to 25% of the entire population," Bilovol said. "About 12m people will be down."
About 1% out of the 12m patients in Ukraine will require hospitalization, and some 18,000 people will have to be put in intensive care, Bilovol predicted.
Ukraine has already recorded more than 250,000 cases of influenza-like illness, with 235 patients requiring intensive care, the WHO said. Ukraine's authorities put the number infected at much higher, saying the number of those officially diagnosed with flu or other acute viral infections in Ukraine reached 450,000 as of November 4, Bilovol said.
"Regions in western Ukraine continue to show the highest rates of acute respiratory illness/influenza-like illness. The level of activity in the Kyiv area is also increasing rapidly," the WHO said. "As elsewhere, WHO strongly recommends early treatment with the antiviral drugs, oseltamivir or zanamivir, for patients who meet treatment criteria, even in the absence of a positive laboratory test confirming H1N1 infection."
Going viral
The scientists in the Hague say that once the virus has mutated into a highly infectious form there is little a country can do to prevent the spread and there is little neighbours can do to prevent it crossing the border. Russia is already reporting an outbreak of the virus in Buratiya, in central Russia.
A computer model developed by virology experts at the University of London showed that borders were impossible to close and even countries surrounded by sea cannot prevent the virus entering the country. Even banning travel completely and closing the borders completely will only slow the entry of the virus into an unaffected country by up to one week. On Wednesday, November 4, WHO reaffirmed this point, insisting on its recommendation that no borders should be closed and no restrictions on international travel should be imposed, including in relation to Ukraine. "Experience shows that such measures will not stop further spread of the virus," it said.
Likewise, quarantine or isolating patients doesn't work either. Experience has shown that all quarantine does is increase the infection rate. Infected people are isolated, but they are usually isolated together with their family and others that they are in close contact with, many of whom have not been infected. The result of concentrating people who are both ill and healthy is that more healthy people become infected. As no quarantine is perfect, the denser infection rates leads to a more rapid transmission of the virus.
Happily, the good news is that from the appearance of a virus it usually takes up to six months to develop a vaccine and this period has already passed and a vaccine is already available. Inoculations are the most effective way to bringing a virus under control and this process has already started. Other simple hygiene precautions are also very effective in slowing the spread of the virus such as washing your hands regularly and wearing facemasks in public places.
http://businessneweurope.eu/storyf1853/KYIV_BLOG_12m_
2007 article -
CHENGDU, China, Aug. 9 ? A highly infectious swine virus is sweeping China?s pig population, driving up pork prices and creating fears of a global pandemic among domesticated pigs.
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Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
In Gu Yi, a village in Sichuan Province, a veterinarian?s banner claims he can cure blue-ear disease, but the virus still spreads.
Animal virus experts say Chinese authorities are playing down the gravity and spread of the disease.
So far, the mysterious virus ? believed to cause an unusually deadly form of an infection known as blue-ear pig disease ? has spread to 25 of this country?s 33 provinces and regions, prompting a pork shortage and the strongest inflation in China in a decade.
More than that, China?s past lack of transparency ? particularly over what became the SARS epidemic ? has created global concern.
?They haven?t really explained what this virus is,? says Federico A. Zuckermann, a professor of immunology at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. ?This is like SARS. They haven?t sent samples to any international body. This is really irresponsible of China. This thing could get out and affect everyone.?
There are no clear indications that blue-ear disease ? if that is what this disease is ? poses a threat to human health.
Though the Chinese government acknowledges that the current virus has devastated pig stocks in coastal and southern areas, it has not admitted what experts say is clear: the virus is rapidly moving inland and westward, to areas such as this one in Sichuan Province, China?s largest pork-producing region.
?This disease is like a wind that swept in and passed from village to village,? said Ding Shurong, a 45-year-old farmer in a village near here who lost two-thirds of his pigs . ?I?ve never seen anything like it. No family was left untouched.?
No one knows for sure how many of this country?s 500 million pigs have been infected. The government says officially that about 165,000 pigs have contracted the virus this year. But in a country that, on average, loses 25 million pigs a year to disease, few believe the figures. In part, the skepticism comes from the fact that pork prices have skyrocketed 85 percent in the last year ? an increase that, absent other factors, suggests the losses from disease are more widespread than Beijing admits.
And there are other signs. Field experts are reporting widespread disease outbreaks. Fear among pig farmers that their livestock will contract the disease has led to panic selling. And the government and media here have issued alarming reports that farmers are selling diseased or infected pigs to illegal slaughterhouses, which could pose food safety problems.
International health experts are already calling this one of the worst disease outbreaks ever to hit Asia?s livestock industry, and they fear the fast-mutating pathogens could spread to neighboring countries, igniting a worldwide epidemic that could affect pork supplies everywhere.
A similar virus has already been detected in neighboring Vietnam and Myanmar, and health experts are trying to determine if it came from China.
Health experts say China has declined to send tissue samples to testing labs outside the country for independent verification by a lab affiliated with the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris.
The Chinese government says that it has reported the disease to international health bodies and insists that the disease is under control and that a vaccine has been developed and distributed.
But, some scientists say there is no truly effective vaccine against blue-ear pig disease (which is also known as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome); other experts say they are not even certain that the blue-ear virus is the one that is spreading.
Scientists who track blue-ear pig disease are puzzled because the disease is generally not so deadly.
?This virus generally makes them ill but on its own it doesn?t cause a lot of deaths,? said Steven McOrist, a professor of pig medicines at the University of Nottingham in England. ?The evidence they put up so far is not conclusive.?
If it is blue-ear pig disease, which has infected most parts of the world, including the United States, it may be a new and more virulent strain.
?This is more severe than we?ve seen elsewhere,? said Derek Armstrong, a senior veterinary scientist at the Meat and Livestock Commission in Britain. ?It may be a co-infection of pigs with other things.?
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is now pressing China to share its research and tissue samples.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/business/worldbusiness/16pigs.html
