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In Europe, giant stocks of anti-viral medication consists for 90% of Tamiflu® (oseltamivir) drugs.
BREAKING NEWS –
Alert Level 5 – Pandemic Imminent: WHO
WHO Raises Alert Level to 4
The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert for swine flu by one level to phase 4, two steps short of declaring a full-blown pandemic. WHO says the phase 4 alert means sustained human-to-human transmission is causing outbreaks in at least one country.
Current WHO phase of pandemic alert
The data on the current flu season, 2008-2009 is obviously not complete since the season is not yet finished, but an analysis on that which has been gathered so far shows that Tamiflu resistance in H1N1 type A strains continue at a high level. Up to 19 February 2009, Tamiflu resistance was found in 264 of 268 (98.5 per cent) of the H1N1 type A viruses tested by the CDC.
The authors wrote that:
“The emergence of oseltamivir resistance has highlighted the need for the development of new antiviral drugs and rapid diagnostic tests that determine viral subtype or resistance, as well as improved representativeness and timeliness of national influenza surveillance for antiviral resistance.”
In December last year the CDC issued draft guidelines for the use of antiviral flu medications in line with what they found after analyzing the data coming in for the current season. They recommended that doctors and other health professionals:
“Consider the results of patient testing and local influenza surveillance data on circulating types and subtypes of influenza viruses in deciding whether oseltamivir [tamiflu] alone could be used. These guidelines provide options, including preferential use of [the anti-viral drug] zanamivir or a combination of oseltamivir and [the anti-viral drug] rimantadine, which might be more appropriate in treating patients who might have influenza caused by an oseltamivir-resistant virus.”
Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection have been identified in the United States. Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection also have been identified internationally.
Investigations are ongoing to determine the source of the infection and whether additional people have been infected with swine influenza viruses.
CDC is working very closely with officials in states where human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) have been identified, as well as with health officials in Mexico, Canada and the World Health Organization. CDC has activated its Emergency Operations Center to coordinate this investigation.
Laboratory testing has found the swine influenza A (H1N1) virus susceptible to the prescription antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir and has issued interim guidance for the use of these drugs to treat and prevent infection with swine influenza viruses.
[NOTE: European specialists have voiced their opinion that this virus quickly adapts and have great concern to forms of resistant strains H1N1-virus to Tamiflu medication – Oui]
Checks at air and sea ports stepped up; public urged to be on guard.
(Straits Times) – Asian nations have started taking measures, including quarantines and screening passengers at airports, to combat the the threat of a deadly swine flu which has killed 103 in in Mexico and stoked fears of a global epidemic as new cases cropped up in the United States and Canada.
Tokyo’s Narita airport installed a thermographic imaging device to test the temperatures of passengers arriving from Mexico.
Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors who came back from flu-affected areas with fevers would be quarantined. China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival from an affected area had to report to authorities. A Russian health agency said any passenger from North America running a fever would be quarantined until the cause of the fever is determined.
Symptoms of the flu-like illness include a fever of more than 37.8 deg C, body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhoea.
Oui, as I understand it, every year the CDC has to deviate the antiviral vac. to account for this occurring….such as last years vac. just is not effective as this years should be. So in saying it is an ongoing evolution of vaccine that must be developed. I hope I am correct on my summation of this. It is a precarious disease that is very sneaky to us humans.
Oh, BTW, it is a virus not a bacteria so only antiviral drugs are effective not like bacteria. It is very difficult to treat virus’ in any category of infection. So as to say antibiotics are effective is a wrong assumption.
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By Grace Ibay
The new swine flu virus that broke out in Mexico is unique and potentially dangerous in one way. It is a virus that has a combination of gene segments from human, bird and swine viruses, and can potentially become infectious in humans that have no immunity to the new strain.
Influenza viruses can change its make-up in one of two ways: Antigenic drift is a series of mutations that cause the virus to gradually evolve over time. Antigenic shift is an abrupt change in the surface antigen proteins that suddenly creates a new subtype of the virus. In the history of influenza outbreaks, antigenic shift is the cause behind pandemics in 1918 (Spanish Flu), 1957 (Asian Flu) and 1968 (Hongkong Flu) because the populations have not developed antibody protection against the virus.
What’s especially unique about this new swine flu strain is that it’s a type A/ strain H1N1 and it hasn’t been previously detected in pigs. Lab tests showed that the H1N1 is susceptible to the antiviral drugs oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir and the US government is prepared to use the drugs to treat and prevent infection with swine influenza virus.
CDC Guidance in use of Tamiflu
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
Researchers and policy-makers placed their bets a few years ago on the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus emerging in Asia (the highly lethal virus is hard to pass from birds to humans but still has killed 257 people in recent years). Preparations were made for this bird flu to go pandemic.
What we have on our hands instead this spring is an outbreak (not a pandemic, as of today) of an H1N1 swine flu virus strain, not emerging from Asia at all.
So it’s back to square one.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has started the early work on a vaccine for the new swine flu to protect us from getting sick or at least deadly sick. (The so-called seasonal flu shots that some people get every winter won’t do the job.)
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(The Independent) – The White House says that Barack Obama is “highly engaged” in monitoring the swine flu outbreak that has spread over the border from Mexico into the US – and well he might. For a while, the President’s doctors feared that he may have come closer than almost anyone in the country to contracting the virus.
According to alarming reports from Mexico City, Felipe Solis, a distinguished archaeologist who showed Mr Obama around the city’s anthropology museum during his visit to Mexico earlier this month, died
the next dayThursday April 23 [Oui] from “flu-like symptoms”.Mr Solis met the President at a gala dinner which was held at the museum on 16 April, before Mr Obama travelled on to the Americas summit in Trinidad and Tobago.
Yesterday, the museum was shut, in common with most public attractions in Mexico City, and the nation’s Health Minister confirmed that Mr Solis had died of pneumonia – but that it was not thought he had contracted swine flu.
Disturbing echoes of the great 1918 flu pandemic
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
WELLINGTON, New Zealand, April 27 NZPA – Dr Huang said from Geneva, where she is attending a WHO meeting on national influenza centre contingency plans, that it was “extremely important” to monitor oseltamivir resistance because of the reliance being placed on Tamiflu stockpiles in the event of a pandemic.
She warned there was a possibility that as the swine influenza spread among people already exposed to Tamiflu-resistant strains of influenza, the swine flu may evolve resistance to the drug.
“Influenza virus is notoriously unpredictable,” she said.
“It is very important to monitor closely in order to provide early warning if (this) situation … emerged.”
New Zealand virologist Richard Webby, director of the WHO collaborating centre for studies on the ecology of influenza viruses in lower animals and birds at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, told NZPA the risk of a Tamiflu-resistant swine flu evolving was a “valid possibility”.
“Flu viruses do exchange gene segments and it is possible that the swine virus could swap out its neuraminidase (the target for oseltamivir) with a human strain,” he said.
Problems would arise if the resulting virus was able to grow well and transmit between humans.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(FT) – Mexico City authorities admitted they might have to “shut down” Mexico’s sprawling capital in an effort to combat an outbreak of swine flu that has so far claimed the lives of up to 149 people, according to official reports.
Marcelo Ebrard, the city’s mayor, said that the next step in trying to quarantine the virus, a hybrid of human and animal influenza strains that scientists have never seen, could be shutting down the public transport network.
The possibility of closing one of the world’s biggest cities comes as its 22m residents are feeling a growing sense of panic.
Mexico faces criticism over swine flu response
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
The Hong Kong Center for Health Protection said Monday that a Hong Kong woman who developed symptoms of respiratory infection and fever while traveling in the United States was being tested for swine flu.
China takes preventive steps against flu
New Zealand health officials were investigating suspected cases in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Nelson, the West Coast, Canterbury and Otago. Some patients were isolated at home and were being treated with the anti-viral drug as a precaution.
Health Ministry emergency planning national co-ordinator Steve Brazier said that the drug would be offered to every passenger on flights Air NZ flight NZ1 and NZ5 from Mexico, regardless of symptoms. “We’ve got the Tamiflu and that’s what it’s there for. We’re ready to ring-fence around the problem and blitz it.”
HOW DOES IT KILL?
Viruses kill their host by over-stimulating immune systems that are robust and healthy. That is why healthy adults with strong immune systems can be hit hardest. Inflammation and leaking fluid in lung cells can effectively drown victims from inside.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
h/t to Sven Triloquist @ET
(Guardian) – Mexican village whose inhabitants were overwhelmed by an outbreak of respiratory illness starting in February has emerged as a possible source of the swine flu outbreak which has now spread across the world.
The state government of Veracruz in eastern Mexico has confirmed one case of swine flu in the village of La Gloria with the sufferer named locally as a four-year-old boy, Edgar Hernandez Hernandez.
“According to state agents of the Mexican social security institute, the vector of this outbreak are the clouds of flies that come out of the hog barns, and the waste lagoons into which the Mexican-US company [Smithfield] spews tons of excrement,” reported Mexico City newspaper La Jornada.
Swine flu can be caught through contact with infected animals, but it is unclear if contact with flies or excrement has the same effect.
“Patient Zero” Identified in Mexican Flu Outbreak?
Smithfield and Granjas Carroll have agreed to adopt government recommendations to “begin reinforcing its biosecurity measures to prevent workers and animals from being infected, the newspaper Reforma said.
Reforma also reported that Villagers in La Gloria are being threatened, harassed and even jailed for speaking out against the hog giant.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
If a potential vaccinee or any of their household contacts have conditions such as HIV/AIDS, solid organ or stem cell transplant, generalized malignancy, leukemia, lymphoma, or agammaglobulinemia, they should not be vaccinated. People with these conditions are at greater risk of developing a serious adverse reaction resulting from unchecked replication of the vaccine virus (progressive vaccinia). It is also reported that some patients with severe clinical manifestations of some autoimmune diseases (e.g., systemic lupus erythematosus) may have some degree of immunocompromise as a component of the disease. These patients should not receive smallpox vaccine during the pre-event vaccination program.
Also reminds me of adverse effects by infants after mandatory vaccinations.
It doesn’t necessarily proof a premeditated plan, the African HIV/AIDS explosion could be local origin due to contact with the monkey variant, but set into motion (expedited) with the small pox vaccination program.
The analogy to the 1976 outbreak at Fort Dix and the Ford vaccination program is indeed interesting.
≈ Cross-posted from my diary @ET — WHO Raises Alert Level to 4 ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Mexico To Shut Down Government, Businesses To Stop Swine Flu Spread
This is getting deadly serious.
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BREAKING NEWS –
WHO chief to raise pandemic alert level to 5
See my other diaries here, here and over @ET here.
My recent comment: Tall Tales Across the Rio Grande. IMO Mexico thinks it can get away with no testing near “point zero” at La Gloria near the Springfield pig farms.
The WHO and western nations will have a chance to develop a vaccin the coming months before a new wave of cases will develop this fall. Fall and winter is the season of colds and influenze, spreading the virus within communities. Unfortunately, Australia and New Zealand (Southern Hemisphere) could see the virus spread in their coming winter season.
(Scoop.nz) – Since the initial H5N1 deaths in Hong Kong in 1997, the WHO, with the support of most national health services, has promoted a strategy focused on the identification and isolation of a pandemic strain within its local radius of outbreak, followed by a thorough dousing of the population with anti-viral drugs and (if available) a vaccine.
An army of skeptics has rightly contested this viral counter-insurgency approach, pointing out that microbes can now fly around the world (quite literally in the case of avian flu) faster than the WHO or local officials can react to the original outbreak. They also pointed to the primitive, often nonexistent surveillance of the interface between human and animal diseases.
But the mythology of bold, preemptive (and cheap) intervention against avian flu has been invaluable to the cause of rich countries, like the U.S. and Britain, which prefer to invest in their own biological Maginot Lines, rather than dramatically increase aid to epidemic frontlines overseas–as well as to Big Pharma, which has battled Third World demands for the generic, public manufacture of critical antivirals like Roche’s Tamiflu.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."