… no good news today. Not avian flu, but swine flu … !
New, deadly swine flu hits Mexico
By Noel Randewich and Armando Tovar
Reuters
Friday, April 24, 2009 11:30 AM
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A deadly strain of swine flu never seen before has broken out in Mexico, killing at least 16 people and raising fears it is spreading across North America.
The World Health Organization said it was concerned about what it called 800 “influenza-like” cases in Mexico, and also about a confirmed outbreak of a new strain of swine flu in the United States.
Mexico canceled classes for millions of children in its sprawling capital city and surrounding areas on Friday after authorities noticed a higher number of deaths involving flu-like illness than normal in recent weeks.
“It is a virus that mutated from pigs and then at some point was transmitted to humans,” Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told the Televisa network.
He linked the disease in Mexico to a new kind of swine flu that struck seven people in California and Texas.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the virus in the United States was a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans. All seven American patients have recovered.
The Mexican government warned people not to shake hands or kiss when greeting or share food, glasses or cutlery for fear of contracting the flu.
Mexico City, one of the world’s biggest cities and home to some 20 million people, was quieter than usual on Friday morning. Normally choking traffic was less chaotic in the absence of school buses and parents driving kids to school.
Many people waiting to enter subway stations had their faces covered with surgical masks.
The virus is an influenza A virus, carrying the designation H1N1. It contains DNA typical to avian, swine and human viruses, including elements from European and Asian swine viruses, the CDC has said.
WHO said about 60 people in Mexico have died from the disease. The Geneva-based U.N. agency said it was in daily contact with U.S., Canadian and Mexican authorities and had activated its Strategic Health Operations Center (SHOC) — its command and control center for acute public health events.
Surveillance for and scrutiny of influenza has been stepped up since 2003, when H5N1 bird flu reappeared in Asia. Experts fear this strain, or another strain, could spark a pandemic that could kill millions.
(Additional reporting by Maggie Fox in Washington and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Eric Walsh)
This is:
(a) Scary
(b) Worth following the experts, if possible, as they investigate. Carlo and Lyle (or others): is there a way to find out in detail what CDC and WHO are up to (beyond what the media is reporting)? I imagine that the Epidemic Intelligence Service and GOARN folks, etc., are out in force.
This is much more serious than what we have seen both in 1976 and in the past few years with avian influenza. It MIGHT become the first pandemic not caused by a new subtype of the influenza virus and might thus lead to a revision of the very category of pandemic influenza.
The good news is that the virus seems to be susceptible to oseltamivir and zanamivir (but resistant to amantadine and rimantadine).
It remains to be seen what is going to happen.
At this point, I think everybody is extremely busy, trying to figure out what is going on.
Good work guys.
Lyle– contact Ascher and see what he has to say.
(Lyle and others did a video with Ascher and we can post that).
Fears of cases in Queens. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/nyregion/25sick.html
coordinated responses across local/state health departments?
Here is a quick summary of Dr. Richard Besser’s press conference yesterday:
-CDC is contact tracing in TX and CA
-no travel alteration recommendations as of yet, it will be interesting to see when/if they come from the US (apparently Canada has, says Jimmy Jazz).
-CDC is working to develop vaccine seed strains specific to these recent swine influenza viruses.
-there has not been any change in the pandemic threat level, we are at 3 of 6 now (an uneasy yellow on the WHO’s morbid color wheel, as is level 4, then the scary colors come). Although the WHO is convening a panel to assess the possible need to kick it up a notch to “evidence of increased human-to-human transmission”
-”there are things that we see that suggest containment is not very likely”
CDC’s new cdc.gov/flu/swine had over 500,000 hits yesterday: its not just the experts that are getting concerned.
Also the US/Mexico boarder is already being patrolled more intensely, perhaps a racialized virus in not far off.
A guess we could all become hermits and not go anywhere…lol.
I found a great article this morning talking about this very thing in Google news…your points are right on time.
Verification is awaited late today for the foremost example of to someone person carry-over of swine influenza in the UK. It is thought to be a friend of Lain and Dawn Askham, who were the first affirmed victims in the UK and they assembled subsequently after their homecoming from honeymoon in United Mexican States. at the start the man was cleared but later on his symptoms carried on he was re examined and was found to be suffering from Type A flu. Examinations are still in progress but are likely to confirm swine influenza. This at once takes the complete number of swine influenza sufferers in the United Kingdom to 8 -that is 6 in England 2 in Scotland but thus far no deceases.