The Great Beyond

More safety data is needed before an experimental flu vaccine made inside insect cells should be approved, a US federal advisory committee said yesterday.

A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel voted 6-to-5 that Protein Sciences, a vaccine company based in Meriden, Connecticut, hadn’t proven that its FluBlok vaccine was safe enough to enter mass production. Nine of the 11 panellists, however, said the shot was effective in adults aged 18 to 49, although the vaccine did not appear to work as well in older patients.

The vaccine is made by inserting flu genes into an insect virus and growing it in caterpillar ovary cells. This process only takes two months, compared to the five or six needed to grow virus in chicken eggs, and so it has been touted as a way to speed up manufacturing when new vaccines against potentially pandemic flu strains are urgently needed — like now. Fewer than 50 million doses of H1N1 vaccine are currently available in the US.

Continue reading "Bug-based flu vaccine rebuffed" »

Posted by Elie Dolgin on November 20, 2009
Categories: Health and medicine, Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for David Cyranoski

The Chinese government has sent inspection teams to check on H1N1 reporting after a famed Chinese doctor accused local governments of covering up swine flu cases.

Zhong Nanshan of Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in southern China, called into question the official number of deaths from H1N1, telling the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper that the quoted figure of 53 was too low. “I just don’t believe that there have been 53 H1N1 deaths nationwide,” he said.

Yesterday Ministry of Health spokesman Deng Haihua, said any officials who do not carry out their H1N1 reporting duties or who delay reporting will be “held accountable”. He also said that teams had been sent to inspect pandemic control. In total nine groups have been sent to Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Hunan, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang (official statement).

While many have pointed out that limitations on testing capacity have led to an underreporting, Zhong suggested that some hospitals were intentionally not testing those who died from pneumonia for H1N1.

His words carry weight because he shot to fame during the Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 for quickly recognizing and reacting to the threat posed by the new virus while government officials around the country tried to cover it up.

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page

Posted by Daniel Cressey on November 20, 2009
Categories: Health and medicine, Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Chemists are mourning the loss of a bright young star of the field, Keith Fagnou, an organic chemist at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Fagnou died three days after being admitted to hospital with the H1N1 flu virus. He was 38 years old.

An announcement from the department of chemistry at the university reads “Professor Fagnou was an outstanding scientist, teacher, and mentor. He will be missed by all his colleagues and students as a leader, a teacher, a passionate scientist, and a good friend.”

Fagnou was researching the organic chemistry of carbon-hydrogen bonds in cyclic molecules called arenes, with the aim of making these catalytic reactions more efficient. Fagnou’s research was part of the green chemistry movement, which is trying to make chemical processes more sustainable. In 2003, Fagnou won the Polanyi prize, given by the province of Ontario in honour of Nobel laureate John Polanyi, who won the prize for chemistry in 1986.

The Ottawa Citizen uses Fagnou’s death to discuss how this strain of flu might hit young, seemingly healthy people more than seasonal flu – which tends to cause worst suffering in the elderly and very young.

Over at popular chemistry blog In the pipeline the question over the availability and production of vaccines in Canada is raised in the comments thread, although it is very unlikely that someone of Fagnou’s age and physical health would feel the need to be vaccinated. Extra poignancy is added when you take a look at the University of Ottawa’s swine flu advice page, which reads:

Due to the limited supply of the H1N1 flu vaccine, the University of Ottawa may be required to hold its campus vaccination clinic at a later date. The University is waiting on confirmation from Public Health Ottawa and will keep the community informed of all developments.

The latest CDC estimates, released late last week, suggest that the number of deaths from swine flu is greater than expected (Washington Post).

Fagnou is survived by his wife, who is a doctor, and their three young children. His PhD supervisor Mark Lautens from the university of Toronto told the Globe and Mail how Fagnou’s death is not only a tragic loss to his family and friends, but also to Canadian chemistry: “I think it's safe to say he was the most high-profile rising young star in chemistry in Canada.”

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on November 16, 2009
Categories: Chemistry, Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While researchers are calling for studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the cholesterol lowering drugs known as statins for reducing influenza-associated deaths, one such study is just getting underway, largely on volunteerism and shoestring funding.

Newspapers reported yesterday (e.g. here, here and here) from the 2009 Infectious Diseases Society of America meeting in Philadelphia that statin use appears to be associated with a lower death rate from influenza. Using data from the 2007-2008 flu season, researchers reviewed charts from 2,800 lab-confirmed influenza-associated hospitalizations. More than 800 of these individuals were taking statins at the time. Meredith VanderMeer of the Oregon Public Health Division and her colleagues found that 2.1% of patients taking statins died within a month of being hospitalized for the flu, while 3.2% who were not taking statins died.

Statins have been suggested before as a potential alternative to antiviral drugs like oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza), which are more expensive and have the potential to run out in a severe pandemic. Statins may reduce the effects of the virus by dampening the immune response.

Continue reading "The statins-for-flu study that the press missed" »

Posted by Brendan Maher on October 30, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

“We think it will get easier to find vaccine in the weeks that come. It is likely also … in the future, we will have significant amounts of vaccine that can’t be used.”
Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says despite a perceived shortage America may actually end up throwing away some of its swine flu vaccine (Reuters).

“Increased demand during a severe pandemic could exceed the capacities of Internet providers’ access networks for residential users and interfere with teleworkers in the securities market and other sectors, according to a DHS study and providers.”
The US Government Accountability Office says H1N1 could crash the internet (large pdf).

“The situation is under control and not significantly different from the usual seasonal flu situation.”
Viktor Maleyev, deputy chief of the Central Research Institute of Epidemiology in Russia, comments on the country’s first swine flu deaths (LA Times).

“Given the extraordinary precautions being taken across the nation to prevent the spread of the H1N1 influenza, the Archdiocese has instituted a series of steps to be followed for the time being during the celebration of the Mass.”
Jonathan Gaspar, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, says the church will stop offering consecrated wine at Communion and urge people to avoid physical contact during Mass to avoid the spread of H1N1 (Boston Globe).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on October 28, 2009
Categories: Quotes of the day, Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

Facing a shortage of vaccines, New York State yesterday dropped its mandate for health care workers to get immunized against swine flu.

Without enough H1N1 vaccine to go around, the Empire State opted to prioritize vulnerable people, such as pregnant women and children, ahead of nurses and doctors. “We had told hospitals that if they had to choose between vaccinating patients or employees to vaccinate patients first,” Richard Daines, New York's health commissioner, said in a statement.

The statement, jointly issued with Governor David Paterson, did not mention that the requirement to vaccinate health care workers had been put on hold anyway after a judge last week issued a temporary restraining order against the measure.

The lack of vaccine, it seems, has defused the conflict.

Posted by Elie Dolgin on October 23, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

As America faces warnings of a vaccine shortage, Europe is getting underway with the H1N1 jabbing.

In the UK vaccinations start today, with doctors, nurses and pregnant women first in line for shots. “This is the first pandemic for which we have had vaccine to protect people. I urge everyone in the priority groups to have the vaccine,” says Liam Donaldson, the UK’s Chief Medical Officer (press release).

France has also started vaccinating this week, and Germany will begin 26 October, followed by Ireland on 2 November (Independent, Bloomberg).

Last week the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that vaccine production was not going as well as might be hoped. Anne Schuchat told reporters some manufacturers were having difficulties and production was “a bit delayed”.

“We wish that we had more vaccine and there is more vaccine coming out every day,” she said. (See: Swine flu shot shortfall.)

Australia became the first country to begin mass vaccination against H1N1 when it rolled out its programme on 30 September (see: Sky, Brisbane Times).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on October 21, 2009
Categories: Health and medicine, Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page

Healthcare workers in New York have won a temporary reprieve from compulsory swine flu vaccinations.

New York State Public Employees Federation has taken the State of New York to court in an attempt to overturn a policy that requires doctors and other healthcare workers to be vaccinated against H1N1 by 30 November or face disciplinary action. On Friday a judge granted a temporary restraining order on the emergency vaccination regulation.

“Our lawsuit states this regulation is an absolute violation of the separation of powers, as it is an unconstitutional exercise of the legislature’s authority,” says PEF President Kenneth Brynien.

If such forced vaccination is necessary it should come from the legislature, not from the desk of the State Health Commissioner, says Brynien. The PEF says it encourages its members to be vaccinated but opposes enforced vaccination.

Last month, State Health Commissioner Richard Daines wrote, “Questions about safety and claims of personal preference are understandable. Given the outstanding efficacy and safety record of approved influenza vaccines, our overriding concern then, as health care workers, should be the interests of our patients, not our own sensibilities about mandates.”

A spokesperson for the commission said it would defend the lawsuits brought by the PEF and others over the vaccination rules and that “the precedents are very clear about the commissioner’s legal right” (Newsday).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on October 19, 2009
Categories: Health and medicine, Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page

US health officials today scaled back the number of swine flu vaccine doses that they expect to roll out this month, even as the numbers of H1N1-associated hospitalizations and deaths, particularly among children, continue to rise.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now expects to have 28-30 million doses of swine flu vaccine by the end of October — down from the 45 million doses predicted in August and previous estimates of 120 million forecast earlier in the summer.

The problem, it appears, is insufficient quantities of antigen — the part of the virus included in the vaccine that prompts the body to generate antibodies and mount an immune response.

Coverage can be found at the NY Times, AFP, Reuters, and Bloomberg, among others.

There may be fewer shots to go around, but the three nurses who sued New York state to stop mandatory immunization of health workers won't be clamouring to get the available stock. Today, a New York judge upheld the nurses' appeal and issued a temporary restraining order. State health officials vowed to fight the move. (NY Times)

Swine flu is also finally living up to its name, in the US at least. Pigs at the Minnesota state fair may have tested positive for the H1N1 virus, the first potential cases of the disease among American domestic livestock. The US Department of Agriculture is conducting further tests. (USDA statement)

Posted by Elie Dolgin on October 16, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The European Medicines Agency has recommended the approval of two H1N1 vaccines. Both Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline should shortly see European Union-wide marketing authorisations from European Commission for their products.

The agency follows hot on the heals of the US FDA, which recently approved four vaccines, from CSL, MedImmune, Novartis, and Sanofi Pasteur.

Officials in the US also confirmed this week that the number of vaccine doses likely to be available will be twice as high as previously believed. Between six and seven million doses will be available, rather than 3.4 million (AP).

Now the job is to get people to come and get jabbed, says Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

"Taking the risk and getting sick is probably not a wise roll of the dice,” she says (Reuters). “People can die, and the people who are going to be ill and die are much more likely to be children and young adults.”

Meanwhile, the White House has announced that ‘The H1N1 Rap’ by John Clarke, Medical Director for the Long Island Railroad, was the winning entry in its video contest. Enjoy.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on September 25, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Children as young as 10 years old will need just one H1N1 flu jab, according to a US federal study of about 600 children released Monday. The finding is a relief to public health systems, since as recently as early September officials expected that even adults might need 2 shots, writes the Washington Post.

This should lower demand for the vaccine, which is expected to be unusually high this year, since the H1N1 strain of the influenza virus is striking a much younger segment of the population than normal. French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi, one of five which will produce the flu vaccine in the US, announced yesterday that it will release the first batch of its vaccine for the US market in mid-October. It expects to ramp production capacity up to 800 million vaccines a year. US demand is normally less than 100 million a year, according to the Associated Press.

Want the bad news? Keep reading...

Continue reading "Flu vaccines better than expected, surveillance not" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on September 22, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

Nine countries pledged today to share 10% of their swine flu vaccine supplies with developing nations that might need it.

Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, the United States, and the United Kingdom will make the vaccine available through the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO had been asking for such donations. Today's decision was likely buoyed by positive results from ongoing vaccine trials showing that single doses might be sufficient to provide immune protection. Many countries had ordered enough stock for two doses, so they will likely now have extra shots to give away.

Continue reading "Rich countries to share flu jabs" »

Posted by Elie Dolgin on September 17, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

EU Health Commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou. yesterday released a 12-page "EU strategy on Pandemic (H1N1) 2009," as well as five Commission working documents – on vaccine development, vaccination strategies, joint procurement, communication with the public and media, and support for third countries.

It's difficult to see much new in the package, however. The Commission press release says that "A joint procurement mechanism is proposed to support the Member States that are still in the process of ordering vaccines." This echoed a proposal the incoming Swedish presidency of the EU made in July.

That seemed a bit odd. With incoming surveillance data signaling an uptick in the spread of pandemic flu in European countries, which could herald the imminent onset of the peak phase in the pandemic, it seems a bit late in the day to start discussing ordering vaccine at the EU level, in particular given that it's been obvious since early May that a pandemic was underway.

The text of the policy itself agrees, however, and notes that "Given the stage of development of the pandemic, and the advance purchase orders already concluded by several member states, it is not considered reasonable or efficient at this stage to launch a joint procurement procedure at EU level between interested member states for vaccine procurement." Instead, it argues for considering launching "a bundle of national calls for tender by the interested Member States to be carried out simultaneously or as a whole."

I've checked with the media people at the Commission's health directorate. It seems there was some confusion in the wording of the press release – finally there will be no joint procurement scheme. The Commission will basically try to "help different countries to help themselves," says a spokesperson. Many European countries have already ordered vaccine to cover large proportions of their populations, and so the scale of the problem the Commission is seeking to address is not clear either. "It is a problem," in some countries, according to the spokesperson, but couldn't say more, or in which countries, as the Commission apparently doesn't have "a table of who has ordered what." "Member states aren't obliged to inform us."

Continue reading "Europe's pandemic flu response: who's in the driving seat?" »

Posted by Declan Butler on September 16, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In the latest salvo in a legal row between the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) – an international group created by leading flu researchers in August 2006 to promote data sharing – and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) in Geneva, GISAID today launched its own version of the Epiflu database.

GISAID announced a contract with the SIB in December 2006 to build the first EpiFlu database, an international database which opened last year, and which scientists have since used to help monitor the spread and evolution of influenza viruses and to select the strains used to makes flu vaccines. In July, however, SIB made EpiFlu unavailable via the GISAID website, and available only to users redirected to a SIB website (Nature).

At the time, SIB and GISAID officials declined to discuss the details because of the ongoing legal dispute. But, in short, the SIB alleged that GISAID has breached its contract by failing to pay its bills on time, and that, under Swiss law, a default on payment renders a contract null and void, giving the SIB the rights to the database it built. GISAID claimed that SIB had "misappropriated" the database.

That Epiflu database remains accessible to users on the SIB site, but today GISAID launched its own independent version on the EpiFluDB tab on its own website. The new database was built by the the computational biology department of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics near Saarbrücken in Germany, and a3systems GmbH.

Continue reading "Flu database row escalates" »

Posted by Declan Butler on September 14, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

Early clinical data indicates that two different swine flu vaccines are safe and effective, according to papers published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Twenty-one days into one trial involving 240 subjects aged 18 to 64, a vaccine composed of a single antigen developed by CSL Biotherapies, a flu shot manufacturer based in Parkville, Australia, appears to significantly boost antibody levels in more than 93% of people at both normal and double doses. No serious adverse effects have yet been found, the authors report.

In another three-week trial of 175 adults aged 18 to 50 run by clinicians at the University of Leicester, UK, Novartis' adjuvanted swine flu vaccine yielded protective levels in at least 80% of participants at half the normal dose and more than 90% of subjects given a full dose. Many people experienced pain and muscle ache, and two participants became feverish. The study confirms early reports of success announced last week.

Continue reading "Swine flu jabs look A-OK" »

Posted by Elie Dolgin on September 10, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

With flu season looming, crunch-time is rapidly approaching for Northern hemisphere countries' pandemic planning. It seems likely that the pandemic H1N1 virus will be the predominant strain seen in the upcoming flu season, as data from the Southern hemisphere show that it is out-competing and displacing seasonal strains. The big question mark is when the flu season will start – although some vaccine is already beginning to flow, substantial amounts sufficient to vaccinate large parts of the population won't become available until October/November onwards.

The pandemic H1N1 virus has continued to circulate out-of-season throughout the summer, and with schools reopening and colder weather on the way, one possibility is that peak flu season may occur as soon as this month, rather than in the more typical mid-winter window. If it does come earlier, countries will be faced with tackling the pandemic with one hand tied behind their backs, as little vaccine would be available.

The challenges of handling the pandemic should not be underestimated. I have an article in this week’s Nature surveying researchers from a selection of countries worldwide, describing the scientific and public-health challenges they face in battling the H1N1 virus – see Pandemic flu: from the front lines . A recurring theme is that even if the severity of the virus remains moderate, public health systems and particularly intensive care units, risk being overwhelmed.

Continue reading "Pandemic flu - latest update" »

Posted by Mark Peplow on September 04, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

New guidelines put out by the World Health Organization last week declared that healthy people who contract H1N1 do not need antiviral drugs. This stance appears to put the WHO at odds with the current policies of a number of countries.

“Worldwide, most patients infected with the pandemic virus continue to experience typical influenza symptoms and fully recover within a week, even without any form of medical treatment,” says the WHO. “Healthy patients with uncomplicated illness need not be treated with antivirals.”

Patients who present with severe illness or who get rapidly worse should be given oseltamivir (Tamiflu), as should children under five, according to the new guidelines.

Many country’s policies appear to differ from the WHO. The US Centers for Disease Control’s website currently states, “CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with swine influenza viruses.”

A spokesperson for the UK government – which currently makes Tamiflu available to all those suspected of having H1N1 – insisted its policy was in line with the WHO. “We have consistently said that many people with swine flu only get mild symptoms, and they may find bed rest and over-the-counter flu remedies work for them,” they told the Daily Telegraph.

Earlier this month a paper suggesting that it might not be necessary to give Tamiflu to children also picked up a lot of coverage (see: Swine flu: Tamiflu for children? - August 11, 2009).

Last week the CDC produced its recommendations on who should receive vaccination against H1N1 when a vaccine does become available.

Amidst all of this, a sizable percentage of informed people seem to not want either drugs or vaccination, even if they do qualify. In the UK two new straw polls of doctors working in primary health care found that only around half would accept a vaccine shot.

Image: word cloud generated from WHO recommendations with Wordle

Posted by Daniel Cressey on August 24, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

With no adverse effects detected of swine flu jabs in adults, the US National Institutes of Health kicked off its testing of H1N1 vaccines for children this week.

The first results from two adult trials launched on 7 August will be available in mid-September, but thus far the only complaints stem from redness and bruising at the injection site, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a press briefing today. "There are no red flags regarding safety."

The adult trials — which are testing two concentrations and two doses — will be fully enrolled by the end of the day, said Fauci, and health officials started signing up children aged from 6 months to 17 years on Wednesday. Testing on pregnant women will begin early next month, and vaccine trials involving adjuvants, which boost the body's immune response to the shot, will be launched in mid- to late-September. The trials will include a combined total of around 4,500 patients.

Full vaccine deployment will follow the trials. Between 45 and 52 million doses will be rolled out by mid-October, and then weekly shipments will provide a total of 195 million doses by year's end, said Jay Butler, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's H1N1 vaccine task force.

As a testament to the popularity of enrollment, Jesse Goodman, chief scientist and deputy commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, noted that his own son was turned away because no more participants were needed.

Posted by Elie Dolgin on August 21, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

It looks as if the US may face a problem with swine flu vaccine this fall: 45 million doses will be available by mid November, which is not even half of the 120 million doses predicted previously.

The main ingredient of the vaccine is grown in chicken eggs and manufacturers are only getting 30% as much per egg as they do for seasonal flu vaccines. In addition, the final stages of production involve transferring vaccines into individual syringes, and the “finish-and-fill” facilities where this step takes place are limited in number.

But this is not a shortage, just a delay, Bill Hall, the spokesperson for the Health and Human Services cunningly noted (AP).

Adding to potential problems, those supplies might only cover half as many people, if it proves necessary to administer two shots per person.

Continue reading "Swine Flu update" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on August 20, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for Mico Tatalovic

We’ve previously praised the Swiss government for their frankly bizarre swine flu awareness video. But the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam has come up with a worthy rival for the award of best H1N1 public campaign, with their game The Great Flu.

In the game, people have the task of containing an unknown flu virus that is spreading throughout the world. Early warning systems, face masks and anti-viral drugs are all available to players, as well as options to close public places such as schools and airports and quarantine people.

"The game is based on the need to increase public awareness to the threat posed by a pandemic and the measures in place to contain it," said Albert Osterhaus, of Erasmus Medical Centre (BBC). "In no way is it intended to be a substitute for any advice given by the medical authorities. Its purpose is simply to create another avenue of information."

Osterhaus’s game is the best of a small field, with its main rivals being the Wellcome Trust and Channel 4’s online game Sneeze and the cooperative board games Pandemic, and Pandemic 2: on the Brink.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on August 18, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We do love a good health scare in the UK press, so the current H1N1 outbreak has been a boon to journalists. The latest stir concerns a new study that suggests giving Tamiflu to children could be a bad move.

Researchers at the University of Oxford reviewed all the available evidence on oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) in the treatment of seasonal influenza. Writing in the BMJ they note:

It is difficult to know the extent to which these findings can be generalised to children in the current A/H1N1 pandemic. At present, most cases in children have been mild, but recommendations in several countries encourage treatment of children with suspected or confirmed A/H1N1 flu.

While morbidity and mortality in the current pandemic remain low, a more conservative strategy might be considered prudent, given the limited data, side effects such as vomiting, and the potential for developing resistant strains of influenza.

Continue reading "Swine flu: tamiflu for children?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on August 11, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

More sad news regarding swine flu spread today, with the first deaths in India and Sub-Saharan Africa confirmed.

India’s health ministry has confirmed that one patient with H1N1 has died in the city of Pune. According to news sources in the country 14-year old Rida Shaikh died at the Jehangir Hospital two weeks after contracting swine flu. Her family are now threatening to sue the hospital, with some reports alleging there were delays in diagnosis (Indian Express, Times of India, Voice of America).

South Africa has also confirmed the first death from swine flu in that country, a 22 year old university student who died on the 28 July.

In Europe a Russian health official has blamed the UK for being the source of most of Russia’s swine flu and said it is “absolutely inappropriate” for Russian citizens to travel there (Times).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on August 04, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

In an effort to encourage tourists to visit in the wake of swine flu, Mexico City is offering free health insurance to visitors. Under the Tourist Assistance Card programme anyone staying at a hotel in the city can claim for medical assistance in the event the catch H1N1 or indeed any other disease.

Prescription drugs, emergency dental care, hospital accommodation and transport home are also covered.

“Of all the world’s largest cities, Mexico City is the first to try this,” says Mayor Marcelo Ebrard (press release statement, LA Times).

Given the parlous state of the US health system might it be worthwhile for Americans to fly to Mexico City if they feel a little under the weather? Maybe not. The NY Times cautions “fine print of the proposal says that the treatment will be offered at ‘authorized establishments’ and that in some cases an unspecified deductible will be charged”.

Meanwhile, the Swiss government has come up with perhaps the best H1N1 public awareness campaign so far. Even if your French is ne pas tres bien you should be able to get the point from this. See here and here for the encores.

It makes the UK Department of Health’s ‘Catch It, Bin It, Kill It’ swine flu advert look positively dull. Clearly they need to raise their game by hiring someone else to do the next one, perhaps the guys behind Nature favourite, the Swine Flu Skank.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 31, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Pregnant women who get swine flu are at an increased risk of serious illness and death. Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have analysed the first 34 cases of pandemic H1N1 infections in pregnant women in the US, including 6 deaths, and found that expecting mothers were four times more likely to be hospitalized than other people with the virus.

Given the increased risks, lead author Denise Jamieson, who reported the findings today in the Lancet, urged health officials to leapfrog ill moms-to-be to the front of the queue to receive anti-flu medications such as Tamiflu. “Some clinicians hesitate treating pregnant women with antiviral medications because of concerns for the developing fetus, but this is the wrong approach,” she said. (Wall Street Journal) The right approach, the authors write, is to administer the drugs within 48 hours of illness onset.

Although pregnant women had more complications once struck with the pandemic virus, there was no indication that they were more prone to infection. “There is no reason to delay pregnancy or to be overly concerned,” said Jamieson. “We do not have evidence that pregnant women have increased susceptibility or are more likely to acquire influenza.” (Reuters)

Posted by Elie Dolgin on July 29, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A row appears to have broken out between the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) over the EpiFlu virus sequence sharing database – one that has been widely praised by researchers for its contribution to rapid sharing of sequences during the current H1N1 pandemic.

Visitors to the Epiflu database homepage part of the GISAID web site this afternoon were met with this cryptic message, signed by "The EpiFlu Database team of the SIB":

"Due to contractual and legal issues the EpiFlu Database, developed by the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, is currently unavailable via GISAID. However registered users can continue to work as usual under the strict respect of the conditions set in the GISAID access agreement which the SIB supports. Moreover, the SIB remains totally committed to this very important initiative.
To continue to use the database please click on this link, where you will be prompted with a new password and you will be able to directly reach the EpiFlu Database. If you have any problems with this please contact epifludb@isb-sib.ch"

In December 2006, GISAID entered into an agreement with the SIB: "In order to contribute to the worldwide efforts against the spread of avian flu the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) has entered into an agreement with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (SIB) to lead a consortium that will develop a database on influenza viruses."

GISAID itself was launched in August 2006 to improve sharing of sequences of human cases of bird flu which previously had often been restricted to a closed network of WHO laboratories. Many researchers say it has proved its mettle in the current H1N1 pandemic with sequences being rapidly shared, and scientists taking to its suite of user-friendly tools. The launch was via a letter to Nature signed by some 70 flu scientists, including several Nobel laureates, which outlined the terms of the agreement – a sort of open source licence requiring users of the database to agree to various rules on attributing credit etc.

Continue reading "Exclusive: "Contractual and legal issues" affecting leading pandemic flu sequence database on GISAID" »

Posted by Declan Butler on July 27, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Human tests of two swine flu vaccines have begun in Australia.

The companies CSL and Vaxine have both begun tests on their products today, according to a number of news sources. CSL is running tests on 240 healthy adult volunteers while Vaxine has 300.

One group in the CSL trial will get one dose, while a second group will get two doses, on the basis that if just one does protects then there will be more vaccine to go round.

“The fundamental data that we and others around the world are interested in are the immune response to the first and second dose,” says Andrew Cuthbertson, CSL’s chief scientific officer (Bloomberg).

CSL expects the trial to take about seven months but says it will have enough data by September to allow the Australian government to start planning how to use the vaccine, allowing distribution in October (ABC News, AP).

The results will be carefully scrutinised by all players in the H1N1 vaccine business.

“The world will be watching to see the immunogenicity results of this first clinical trial,” says Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO’s initiative for vaccine research (various, eg: Sydney Morning Herald). “It is likely to be indicative of how the other vaccine candidates will perform.”

Novartis, Sanofi and GSK also plan to start trials in the next few weeks or months. David Low, a health-care analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Sydney, told Bloomberg most companies already had orders to supply vaccines so being first to trial is “probably more of a PR coup” than anything else.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 22, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The UK has got itself in a right tizzy over swine flu this morning. Andy Burnham, the country’s health secretary, has been forced onto the defensive after a rash of stories accusing the government of giving conflicting advice to pregnant women.

“There isn’t conflicting advice. The advice has been clear all along that women who are pregnant should take extra precautions as they would anyway – they should really follow the advice about hand hygiene, they should consider avoiding crowded places,” he says (GMTV, via the Guardian).

He told the BBC’s Today programme that the government couldn’t tell people how to live their lives. “Everyone has to make their own judgements. People have to live their lives,” he said.

Meanwhile, Ernst & Young warned that the UK economy could be brutalised by H1N1 as a result of people staying away from work.

“Perhaps the most worrying aspect of an H1N1 epidemic is that it would reinforce the downward effect of the recession on inflation,” says a report from the company’s Item Club experts (Sky News). “With the western world still teetering on the brink of deflation it is not an exaggeration to say that a pandemic on this scale could tip it over the edge.”

In addition, two major airlines are about to start turning people away if airline staff suspect they may have swine flu. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have announced that they will require doctors notes from people who appear to be ill.

Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead representative on pandemic flu, told The Times this was “a total and utter waste of time”.

He says:

A fit-note is only going to be valid at the moment of issue. You could easily become ill between leaving the GP’s surgery and reaching the airport. It flies in the face of government efforts to relieve pressure on doctors, and we have much more important work to do than this.

Image: CDC

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 20, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

Efforts to produce vaccine against the pandemic H1N1 2009 virus have run into problems. Vaccine makers have told the WHO that the 'seed strains' grown to produce vaccine against the pandemic virus are giving poor yields of antigen. The yield is a quarter to a half of that vaccine makers typically get for seasonal flu vaccine production. WHO has now started to try to make a new set of seed strains using new viral isolates – a process which will take around a month – in the hope that some perform better. But if improved yields aren't forthcoming, the amount of pandemic vaccine available from existing production plant capacity could be cut by half or more, whereas there already isn't enough to go round.http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090512/full/459144a.html

Continue reading "Pandemic flu vaccine yields worse than expected." »

Posted by Declan Butler on July 13, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

A sweeping analysis of pandemic H1N1 (swine) flu suggests that –- at least as far as our immune systems are concerned -- the virus bears some similarity to the dreaded 1918 pandemic virus that claimed upwards of 50 million lives.

The study, published online by Nature today, evaluates the virus in mice, ferrets, macaques, pigs, and human cell cultures. Many of the results are by now familiar: the virus is susceptible to oseltamivir (better known as Tamiflu) and zanamivir (marketed as Relenza), and causes a nasty disease in ferrets (see ‘Swine flu reaches into the lungs and gut’). The virus does not cause much disease in pigs, although it does replicate well there (see ‘Patchy pig monitoring may hide flu threat’ for more on this).

But one interesting new finding addresses the long-standing question of why some people aged 60 years and older appear to be better able to fend off the virus than younger patients. Previous work from the Centers for Disease Control suggested that exposure to previous flu strains may have conferred some residual immunity (see 'Old seasonal flu antibodies target swine flu virus'). Now, Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Kobe University at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his colleagues have narrowed the time frame during which this exposure may have taken place. Specifically, patients born before 1920 are more likely to produce antibodies capable of neutralizing the new H1N1 swine flu, suggesting that exposure to the 1918 flu or a close relative may be the reason.

“Collectively, our findings are a reminder that [swine-origin H1N1 influenza viruses] have not yet garnered a place in history, but may still do so, as the pandemic caused by these viruses has the potential to produce a significant impact on human health and the global economy,” the authors conclude.

Posted by Heidi Ledford on July 13, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s pandemic flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Not a great deal of news from today's World Health Organization (WHO) media briefing on pandemic flu, the first WHO has held subsequent to its declaring of a pandemic on 11 June. The virus has now been officially renamed by WHO and other international agencies as "pandemic (H1N1) 2009" virus. It was initially called 'swine flu' but WHO changed that to A/H1N1 to avoid stigmatising the pig industry, but A/H1N1 wasn't much good either, as that's also the name of one of the currently circulating seasonal flu strains.

WHO also says it will issue in the next few days new surveillance recommendations for countries, recommending lab confirmation of cases to be abandoned, except for the few countries that have not yet reported the disease in their territories, and switch to population-based surveillance of proxies of the amount of disease such as how many people are treated for influenza-like illness or are hospitalized for the same.

Continue reading "Pandemic flu update" »

Posted by Declan Butler on July 07, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The UK has decided that it cannot contain swine flu, and has moved its health service onto a treatment footing instead.

Health minister Andy Burnham told the House of Commons yesterday that over the last week a “considerable rise” in H1N1 with several hundred new cases every day.

“Cases are doubling every week, and on this trend we could see more than 100,000 cases per day by the end of August—although I stress that that is only a projection,” he said. “As cases continue to rise, we have reached the next step in our management of the disease.”

A fourth person in the country died from the virus today.

Continue reading "Swine flu update UK" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 03, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The World Health Organisation yesterday announced it has now confirmed 77,201 cases of swine flu and 332 deaths.

Roche pledged to make it easier for developing countries to buy its Tamiflu drug at reduced prices. However, a patient in Denmark was recently discovered to have the first case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu.

“The goods news is they just found one,” says Carolyn Bridges, from the US Centers for Disease Control (AP). Shortly after that Japan reported its first case of Tamiflu resistant H1N1 (Reuters).

Continue reading "Swine flu round up" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 02, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

A million dollar contract for flu vaccines in the US has been awarded to a company facing demands from its creditors that it be declared bankrupt. Meanwhile, reports of H1N1 spread continue.

America’s Department for Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday that a $35 million contract for influenza vaccine had been awarded to Protein Sciences Corporation, of Meriden, Connecticut.

However, creditors of the company have filed an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition against it, alleging they are owed $11.7 million (Bloomberg). Robin Robinson, a director at Health and Human Services, says the US government has done “two very thorough financial audits” of Protein Sciences (NY Times).

Continue reading "Swine flu round up" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 24, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The 2009 pandemic flu continues to spread in many parts of the United States and elsewhere in the Northern hemisphere. Some had figured it might go away, as the normal flu season has ended, and not return until the autumn when seasonal flu activity typically picks up. In hard hit places such as New York almost a tenth of the population are showing influenza like symptoms.

In the Southern Hemisphere, where the flu season is getting underway, South Africa yesterday reported its first case, following recent cases in Egypt and Morocco. Africa has not reported anything like the same extent of spread asother parts of the South (such as Australia and countries in South America) - but that is likely down to lack of surveillance.

Clinical researchers have been slow to respond to the 2009 flu pandemic, lament researchers writing in today's Lancet. "Public health officials, virologists, epidemiologists, and policy makers have done well in responding to a rapidly emerging and complex problem. By contrast, the clinical research community's response has been delayed and modest, " writes Jeremy Farrar, a researcher in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and colleagues from Vietnam, the US and Mexico.

They deplore the "lack of information" on the pathogenesis and clinical aspects of those with severe illness, and argue that trials and other clinical research are urgently needed to better understand the disease, and learn of necessary tweaks to treatment regimes. What research is being done isn't being published fast enough, add Farrar et al., contrasting this with the speedy publication by researchers in other disciplines who have published in fast-tracked journal articles, or shared on public wikis – eg here – in advance of formal publication. Clinical researchers need to "catch up," they conclude, "To do otherwise would be unethical."

Continue reading "Swine flu roundup" »

Posted by Declan Butler on June 19, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

In the wake of the first death from swine flu outside of the Americas, news from Brazil indicates that a new strain of the virus may have emerged there.

Institute Adolfo Lutz, in São Paulo, says it has isolated a new strain, “now known as A / Paulo/1454/H1N1”.

It is not yet clear whether the new strain is more or less virulent, but Medical News Today writes:

News of the new strain, together with the newly reported deaths of two people in Argentina to the swine flu virus, have added to fears that South America is heading for a tough winter dominated by the flu pandemic.

More flu news

From air traffic controllers packed together in control towers to prisoners denied hand sanitizer for fear they might drink it, many U.S. government agencies would fall short if a dangerous pandemic struck, according to a report released to Congress on Tuesday.
- Reuters

It will be difficult to boost surveillance of hogs for the new pandemic strain of H1N1 flu unless farmers are confident they won't be penalized if the disease is found in their barns, an official with the World Organization for Animal Health said on Tuesday.
- Reuters

War-funding legislation survived a fierce partisan battle in the House on Tuesday …t he $106 billion measure, in addition to about $80 billion for military operations, provides for an array of other spending priorities, including $7.7 billion to respond to the flu pandemic.
- USA Today

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 17, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Vaccines seem to be the H1N1 topic of the moment after the World Health Organisation raised the Panic Level, sorry, the PanDEMic Level to 6, signalling we are now officially in a pandemic.

“One immediate effect of the declaration of an H1N1 flu pandemic will be to speed the production of a vaccine against the new virus”, says the LA Times. The Times doesn’t really explain why this might be the case.

As Nature noted earlier this week, “Whether the WHO decision will change much in practice remains to be seen, as the world has clearly been in a pandemic for weeks.” AP doesn’t buy it either. The wire service has a story out headlined ‘CDC: Swine flu pandemic level won't change efforts’.

Either way, vaccine production is stepping up. GSK has announced it has started development on a potential H1N1 vaccine and offered to convert its donation of 50 million doses of bird flu vaccines to swine flu.

Sanofi Pasteur has also pledged to get behind the WHO and Novartis says it has successfully produced a first batch of H1N1 vaccine, “weeks ahead of expectations”.

Continue reading "Swine flu round up" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 12, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Declan Butler:

Two main news items today from the World Health Organization's weekly media briefing on the H1N1 swine flu. First, the agency is receiving reports that infections in Inuit communities in Canada are showing "disproportionate numbers of serious cases occurring,” said Keiji Fukuda, WHO's interim assistant director-general for health security and environment. The agency is seeing “a larger number than expected of young Inuit people developing serious illnesses requiring hospitalization.”

There are few other details available at the moment, and Fukuda says it's too soon to start speculating on causes, such as genetic, environmental or due to underlying diseases. But the Inuit were among one of the groups that suffered the highest mortality levels in the 1918 pandemic. “This is why these reports raise such concern for us,” he said. It's also the sort of country- and community-specific impacts that WHO will be keeping its eye on worldwide in the months to come, as the severity of the virus could vary widely from place to place.

Continue reading "Inuit hit harder by swine flu?" »

Posted by Alex Witze on June 09, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The human pandemic swine flu virus H1NI is, for most of us, a disease that other people get. But now, a leading epidemiologist and flu blogger, who goes under the pseudonym Revere at the public health blog Effect Measure, reports first-hand that three generations of his family, including himself, have likely come down with the virus.

In a post last night, Swine flu comes home, he describes how his daughter has come down with lab-confirmed flu, while most of the rest of the family has influenza-like symptoms. In May, Anna Moscona, another flu expert at Weill Cornell Medical College, also diagnosed her 8-year old son as having swine flu, without testing.

Both their diagnoses are more likely correct than not, even without specific testing for swine flu.

Continue reading "Swine flu roundup – flu scientist's family catches swine flu" »

Posted by Declan Butler on June 08, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for David Cyranoski

Researchers in the Netherlands, Egypt and the United States are reporting a worrisomely high secondary transmission rate of the H1N1 virus in Japan.

The researchers also point to a high transmission rates among minors and suggest that "the population of minors could play a key role as a 'reservoir' for sustained chains of secondary transmission".

It might however be difficult to generalize from the Japanese case about how this virus moves. The explosive growth in western Japanese province of Hyogo ken, which along with neighbouring Osaka account for 98% of Japan's cases, followed a volleyball tournament in which some of the players and fans had the disease (Japan Times).

So the Japanese case might tell us less about race or age-specific transmission patterns than it does about how the disease transmits in an enclosed space when sweating, heavily breathing, people are colliding with and high-fiving each other. And the other unique factor to the Japanese case: fans at the volleyball tournament were blowing up balloons and releasing them, the way fans for the local baseball team, Hanshin Tigers, do. "Jet balloons" have since been banned by the Tigers (Japan Times).

Health ministry authorities say the extent to which the volleyball matches were responsible for the spread of the virus is under investigation. The slow release of information could have to do with complaints from the school that the kids were being scapegoated.

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 05, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

H1N1 has reached Africa, with the World Health Organization confirming a case in Egypt. AFP says the Egyptian case involves a 12-year-old girl with joint US and Egyptian nationality.

Bloomberg says the WHO will raise the pandemic level to 6 soon. This would mean swine flu had “caused sustained community level outbreaks” in two different regions.

Earlier this week, Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director general, warned, “Globally, we believe that we are at Phase 5 but are getting closer to Phase 6 and this is based on the following assessment: it is clear that the virus continues to spread internationally, we know that there are a number of countries who appear to be in transition moving from travel-related cases to more established community types of spread.”

The White House has asked for more swine flu money to be made available, should it be needed. According to the Wall Street Journal, president Barack Obama wants $2 billion to prepare for a possible comeback of H1N1 in the autumn and also for the authority to take 1% of the $311 billion allocated for economic stimulus if it was needed in a “worst case scenario”.

More swine flu news

AstraZeneca's MedImmune biotechnology unit has won an initial $90 million order from the U.S. government to make a live attenuated vaccine against the new H1N1 flu strain, it said on Monday.
- Reuters

A further 23 cases of swine flu related to the Eton College outbreak have been confirmed by health officials over the past two days.
- BBC

As Australia's swine flu outbreak topped 620 -- making it the biggest outside of the Americas -- NSW, Queensland and South Australia yesterday ordered children who had travelled to greater metropolitan Melbourne to stay away from schools for a week on their return.
- The Australian

Image top: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 04, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Declan Butler

The World Health Organization (WHO) is getting ready to move its assessment of the pandemic threat of swine flu from phase 5 to 6, the top level on its six-point scale, denoting official global pandemic status. Keiji Fukuda, WHO's interim assistant director-general for health security and environment, said today that the world was “getting closer to phase 6.” Speaking from Geneva at the WHO's weekly media teleconference briefing on the influenza A (H1N1) strain, Fukuda said that outbreaks in many countries in Europe, Asia and South America – including Australia, Japan, the UK, Spain and Chile – were “in transition, moving from travel-related cases to more established community types of spread.”

That puts them on the trajectory already followed by North American countries, where there is now substantial sustained community spread, making a pandemic inevitable. “You can't get in the way of the spread of this virus,” said Fukuda, noting that the virus is now in 64 countries, with lab confirmed cases – the tip of the iceberg – at 18,965, and some 117 known deaths caused by the virus.

The WHO had recently come under pressure from several member states to hold off from declaring a phase 6 pandemic, by redefining this status to include an assessment of the severity of the disease, and not only its geographical spread. There are also concerns about the potential economic impacts of moving to phase 6, such as trade embargoes, culling of swine, and worries about eating pork.

But after WHO consulted some 30 experts from 23 countries at a meeting yesterday, the agency has decided to hold on to its geographical definition of phase 6, requiring evidence of rapid spread in more than one WHO region. At the same time, if it does move to phase 6, three subcategories would be used to give a rough indication of the clinical severity as the pandemic moves forward in the months to come. Trying to put estimates of severity at a global level is “a rather difficult job,” said Fukuda. Severity will vary, he pointed out, both nationally and sub-nationally, and so WHO will focus more on tailoring its guidance as to what steps individual countries need to take. (See When is a pandemic not a pandemic?).

But Fukuda added that he would “hesitate to call the virus mild”, describing it rather as “moderate” - the virus has been severe in some healthy young people, for example. He also pointed out that estimates of mortality are uncertain – see How severe will the flu outbreak be? - and that the virus is likely to reassort and mutate unpredictably over time. “The future impact of this infection has yet to unfold,” he said.

Posted by Mark Peplow on June 02, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The spread of swine flu continues in Asia with the first case reported in Singapore.

This brings the total number of cases, as of May 27 according to WHO, to 13,398 from 48 countries. This includes 95 deaths, although reports since that official figure was posted suggest the number is now over 100.

But, as Nature’s Declan Butler pointed out last week, the case counting isn’t necessarily helpful anymore, and the numbers are not necessarily accurate either, according to one expert in the UK (Independent).

New York’s health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, has warned that myriad “underlying conditions” could exacerbate swine flu, putting many people at risk. (New York Times).

As far as science, and science policy goes, the New England Journal of Medicine has a review article laying out some of the scientific and policy challenges of responding to a swine flu H1N1 pandemic. This article looks in particular at the problems in estimating the severity of, then defining, a pandemic. The NEJM also has more on the genetics of the virus, with an article by Paul Rabadan’s team from Columbia University in New York, which adds to more genetic analysis published last week.

A wiki updating with data about the origins and evolution of A/H1N1 has also been set up.

Image: Getty

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 28, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for Declan Butler

An unpredecented aspect of the reaction of the scientific community to the current pandemic threat is the sheer speed with which researchers are making data publicly available. Within hours of the genomes of virus isolates having been analyzed, researchers from every corner of the globe have uploaded their sequences to the GISAID flu database, or Genbank, for anyone to compute.

Meanwhile, some journals have moved to warp speed, getting papers peer reviewed and published in days instead of months. Neil Ferguson's group at Imperial College London, for example, published an initial report on the epidemiology of the outbreak in Science on 11 May (see 'Swine flu spread matches previous flu pandemics') . It used some sophisticated modelling to describe the evolution of the outbreak, even if the underlying epidemiological data available at that point to feed into the models was so scant that one leading public health blogger described the paper as "computer-aided tea-leaf reading".

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) also published a somewhat meatier paper on 7 May by scientists at the US Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) providing a useful summary of the clinical symptons and age distributions of the earliest cases (see 'US swine flu cases dissected').

But another group of leading evolutionary biologists, including Oliver Pybus at the University of Oxford, and Andrew Rambaut at the University of Edinburgh, have taken a completely different tack. While preparing papers for peer-reviewed publication, they have put online on a public Wiki sophisticated analyses of the flu genome, including detailed phylogenetic trees, as soon as they got their results. They argue that it is in the interest of the public and the scientific community to make data relevant to the pandemic threat publicly available as fast as possible.

And now, Science has just published a paper by another group covering much of the same ground. The paper has some 60 authors including scientists at CDC and from the World Health Organization's lab network.

Continue reading "Genome analysis sheds light on swine flu origins - and high-speed science" »

Posted by Mark Peplow on May 22, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Swine flu is strengthening its foothold in Asia this week. H1N1 has reached one of the world’s most populous cities, Tokyo, and the total number of official WHO-listed cases in Japan is likely to have topped 300 by the time you read this.

With media reports claiming the country is in ‘crisis mode’, health officials moved to reassure on Friday by stating the virus causes only mild cases in most instances. AFP reports that some restrictions related to the flu have been eased.

But as Mexico lifts its remaining restrictions on people in its capital, Australia is going in the opposite direction. The country raised its alert level to ‘Contain’ on Friday, giving authorities wider powers to respond to H1N1 cases.

“The raising of the alert level to CONTAIN recognises that Australia has a small number of swine flu cases and at least one human-to-human transmission,” said Nicola Roxon, the Minister for Health and Ageing (pdf). “It is important to remember that while the official alert level has been raised, there are still only a small number of confirmed cases in Australia, and the symptoms people are experiencing are relatively mild.”

I will leave you with these lines from the WHO, contained in their recent High-Level Consultation report:

It remains uncertain how fast the new influenza A virus will spread throughout the world and whether it will become widely established.

It remains uncertain whether the infectivity and virulence of the new influenza A virus will change over time.

The only thing certain about influenza viruses is that nothing is certain.

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 22, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The worldwide number of swine flu cases has passed the five figure mark. While having 10,243 cases as opposed to yesterday’s 9,830 is not a sign of imminent doom, it’s another important reminder that we should be taking H1N1 seriously.

It follows Monday’s warning from WHO director-general Margaret Chan, who warned, “This virus may have given us a grace period, but we do not know how long this grace period will last. No one can say whether this is just the calm before the storm.”

And yesterday the WHO met vaccine manufacturers and insisted that an H1N1 treatment must be “made available in a spirit of equity and fairness”. This follows earlier concerns that developed nations – particularly the US – would lay claim to the majority of vaccine doses.

“In the name of solidarity, I have reached out to drug and vaccine manufacturers,” said Chan. “We will look at different mechanisms to make sure poor communities and countries are not left out.”

More swine flu news

To stop swine flu before it could sneak off airplanes arriving from North America, Japan dispatched masked health inspectors with fever-sensing guns to walk among passengers. But the flu has taken hold in this island nation anyway, with rapidly increasing numbers of confirmed cases in its western region.
- Washington Post

Inmates at a Mexico City prison rioted Tuesday over restrictions on visits due to swine flu, as the country reported two more confirmed deaths, raising the toll to 74 nationwide.
- AP

As the co-discoverer of one of the key enzymes of the influenza virus and as someone who has written extensively about H5N1 avian flu, I do not count myself among the “flu experts” who believe that the World Health Organization and Dr. Margaret Chan, its director general, “performed well” during the current outbreak of H1N1 swine flu.
- Henry Miller, in a letter to the NY Times

Image Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 20, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Just when people were starting to suggest that swine flu was not that big a deal, the World Health Organization has warned the world not underestimate the dangers.

“This virus may have given us a grace period, but we do not know how long this grace period will last,” said Margaret Chan, WHO director-general. “No one can say whether this is just the calm before the storm.”

The WHO also confirmed today that there are now 8,829 cases of H1N1 infection worldwide, in 40 countries.

AP says Chile is reporting its first case of the virus and the NY Times is reporting a leap in the number of cases in Japan. Rumours that Chan might raise the pandemic alert level to six, signifying a full blown pandemic, have not come true though.

“We remain in phase 5 today,” says Chan.

In other news, American universities are beginning to allow handshakes at graduations again. "In the process of taking a look at it and discussing it, the administration determined that it would probably be okay to say we would be shaking hands," Joel Kleinsasser, spokesman for Wichita State University in Kansas, told AFP.

Image top: Getty
Map: WHO

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 18, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

This morning the World Health Organisation confirmed that over 5,000 swine flu cases have been reported. The number of countries reporting H1N1 has reached 33 and the death toll is now 61.

Confirmation of a second case in mainland China is raising fears of an Asian outbreak, reports Forbes.

The WHO is also warning countries to conserve anti-flu drugs for those patients most at risk. AP reports:

A WHO medical expert, Dr. Nikki Shindo, said the U.N. agency thinks antivirals should be targeted mainly at people already suffering from other diseases or complications — such as pregnancy — that can lower a body's defences against flu.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said pregnant women in particular should take the drugs if they are diagnosed with swine flu — even though the effects on the foetus are not completely known.

In the Netherlands, the virus isolated from one infected person has an “intriguing mutation”, reports ScienceInsider. The change in the PB2 gene could make this version of the flu better at human-to-human transmission.

It could also be a red herring, says the blog.

Image Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 13, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The first Nordic nation to report swine flu is Finland. “There are 2 confirmed cases,” says Juhani Eskola, deputy director general at the National Institute for Health and Welfare (Reuters).

Thailand has also reported an H1N1 sufferer, although all these new cases are people recently returned from Mexico, reports PA.

In China authorities are now attempting to quarantine all passengers who were on a flight with the first case reported on the mainland. The Wall Street Journal reports:

About 120 of the 143 passengers on the flight from Tokyo have been contacted, including several dozen foreign nationals. So far, none are known to have symptoms, but the officials said they were "persuading them to take quarantine measures." It was unclear how many are already in quarantine.

If some of the more dire predictions come true, we may have cause to offer some rare praise for big pharma. Roche has announced that it is donating 5.65 million course of its antiviral Tamiflu to the WHO.

Finally, the journal Science has produced a rapid analysis of swine flu which is getting a lot of press. You can read Nature’s coverage here.

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 12, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page.

Posted for Declan Butler

French scientists this week proposed an international scheme to monitor closely how the new H1N1 swine flu associated strain behaves in the population. The proposal was presented a meeting of flu scientists in Rennes yesterday by Antoine Flahault, dean of the French School of Public Health, which is based in Rennes and Paris.

The proposal suggests creating within three months a system to track the impact of the new flu strain in a standardized way in 1,000 households in as many countries as possible, with surveillance continuing until at least the end of 2010. It suggests the World Health Organization might be one appropriate coordinator.

Under the proposal, the network would report in almost real time basic epidemiological variables such as the proportion of the cohort infected, ill, and asymptomatic, as well as clinical data on case severity and symptoms. The network would also look at such things as local antiviral availability, and precautions being taken.

Continue reading "Wanted: 1,000s of households for H1N1 study" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 12, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The WHO has confirmed the first swine flu death outside of the US and Mexico was the Canadian victim reported last week.

A death has also been confirmed in Costa Rica. In Mexico 48 people have died. In the US the number currently stands at three.

China has reported its first case of swine flu on the mainland. A previous case was reported in Hong Kong. Now state news agency Xinhua says a man in Sichuan Province has twice tested “weakly positive” to H1N1. This case has also been confirmed by the WHO.

Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for science and public health of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the current sequence of the virus indicates it is not as bad as might have been feared.

“The good news so far is that the virulence markers for the 1918 and H5N1 influenza viruses do not appear in the H1N1 strain,” Schuchat says (Bloomberg).

However, she adds, “What we don’t know is whether there may be other virulence markers. Remember the first wave of the 1918 virus was mild and the next wave was devastating.”

Current WHO outbreak map:

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 11, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The Canadian press is reporting a death in Alberta, which if confirmed would be the first H1N1 death outside of Mexico and the United States.

British researchers say they now have the full genetic code of H1N1.

“The pure sample of virus that we have isolated, together with its genetic fingerprint, will be important resources as scientific organisations join forces on the development of an effective vaccine,” says Maria Zambon, director of the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Infections (BBC, Daily Telegraph). “The rapid assessment of this virus will ultimately help us to make future decisions regarding the health implications of swine flu.”

Continue reading "Swine flu round up" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 08, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

H1N1 continues to spread and the World Health Organization has confirmed a case in Sweden and one in Guatemala.

For light relief, today we learned from Reuters that “Afghanistan’s only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats”.

On a more serious note, vaccine production is now on the cards. The WHO’s Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, has also told pharma companies to get ready for mass vaccine production, in case it is needed.

Continue reading "Swine flu update" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 07, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

The first death of a US citizen with swine flu has been confirmed. The Texas Department of State Health Services says a woman with “chronic underlying health conditions” died earlier this week.

There has been one previous death outside of Mexico, when a Mexican child died while visiting Texas. In Mexico 29 people have died.

“She was a US citizen, a resident of Cameron County,” Doug McBride, spokesman for the DSHS told AFP. “My understanding is she had not had recent travel to Mexico.”

AP named the victim as Judy Trunnell, “a 33-year-old schoolteacher who had just given birth to a healthy baby girl”.

Continue reading "Swine flu update" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 06, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Canadian bacon is still safe, say Canadian health authorities who have quarantined a herd of pigs thought to have contracted swine flu from a human. This is the first report of the virus moving from humans back to pigs.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said last week:

It is highly probable that the pigs were exposed to the virus from a Canadian who had recently returned from Mexico and had been exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Signs of illness were subsequently observed in the pigs. The individual has recovered and all of the pigs are recovering or have recovered.

Yet China has banned imports of Canadian pork, reports the Financial Post. Alberta's agriculture minister said that the 2200-pig herd could still be used for food if they checked out after the 10-day quarantine. Flu is not transmissible through food, but the case does indicate that the virus could be prone to rapid mutations, according to the Globe and Mail.

Officials called the import ban, which is also in place in nearly two dozen other countries "disappointing and unfortunate," reports CTV.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on May 05, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

Is the worst behind us in the current swine flu outbreak? Mexico is preparing to end its H1N1 lockdown by allowing restaurants and cafes to reopen in Mexico City tomorrow.

According to the Independent, libraries, museums and churches will then open on Thursday. Mexican officials do appear to believe the worst is over, adds CNN.

In America Richard Besser, acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says, “So far, the severity of illness we’re seeing in this country is similar to what we’re seeing with seasonal flu. While we’re not out of the woods, we are seeing some encouraging signs.” (NY Times.)

However the World Health Organisation still thinks a pandemic is possible.

Its chief Margaret Chan says that moving to the highest level of the WHO scale – pandemic level 6 – was still on the cards although “we are not there yet” (AP).

She did add that, “Level six does not mean, in any way, that we are facing the end of the world. It is important to make this clear because [otherwise] when we announce level six it will cause unnecessary panic.” (El País, via the Guardian.)

Finally, a Mexican football player has been suspended by his club for expectorating at an opponent and then claiming he had swine flu.

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 05, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

In South Africa, one of two suspected swine flu suffers does not have the swine flu virus, influenza A (H1N1) virus. AFP says laboratory tests have confirmed that a woman recently returned from Mexico does not have the H1N1 virus. Test results are pending on the other possible case.

The virus may have reached the Republic of Ireland. Tony Holohan, chief medical officer at the country’s Department of Health, is expected to announce the results of tests on an adult male who recently returned from Mexico later today (Irish Times).

“This is a probable case which is likely to be positive,” says Bill Hall, chairman of the National Pandemic Influenza Expert Group (BBC).

Continue reading "Swine flu update" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 01, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.

As the World Health Organisation raises the pandemic alert level to five, reports indicate the H1N1 virus may have reached Africa.

South Africa reported the continent’s first suspected cases on Wednesday (AFP, Die Burger). SA health ministry spokesman Fidel Hadebe told AFP that two women under investigation had recently returned from Mexico.

After yesterday’s suggestion from Israel’s deputy health minister that the outbreak should be renamed “Mexican flu”, the correct label is being much debated. The NY Times says that Thailand has adopted the Mexican flu moniker and US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has said, “This is not a food-borne illness, virus – it is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that’s not what this is about.”

AP notes that the US Department of Homeland Security “suggested the boring scientific route” of using H1N1. Of course, in Spanish the disease is ‘la gripe porcina’. The Knight Science Journalism Tracker has been rounding up Spanish coverage.

UPDATE: The WHO has thrown its hat into the name debate ring, with the following note on its website:

More
According to a number of sources, email scammers have started trying to exploit swine/Mexican/H1N1 flu scare.
The first American victim of swine flu, reported yesterday, was a Mexican child visiting the US, according to the NY Times.

Image: WHO pandemic phases

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 30, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Swine flu continues to spread. All Nature’s coverage is collected on our news special page. Here is the latest from other sources around the globe.

The first person outside of Mexico to die from the H1N1 virus has been confirmed. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, confirmed the victim was a 23-month old child (BBC, NPR).

In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute has confirmed three cases. The institute is the country’s national reference centre for influenza.

In Mexico the death rate from swine flu seems to be dropping, according to the Daily Telegraph:

[Health secretary Jose] Cordova said that the drop in deaths was due to people taking anti-viral drugs soon after they started displaying symptoms. The first victims were treated with antibiotics and other flu medicine as Mexican health workers struggled to find out what was going on.

US researchers working on a vaccine hope to have a reference strain of the disease by May, according to AP. However the virus appears to grow slowly in the chicken eggs conventionally used in vaccine manufacture. “There is a little bit of concern there,” Ruben Donis, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the newswire.

The New York Times says it will be November at the earliest before enough vaccine for all Americans could be made. A more likely date is January.

A number of papers are now carrying stories about the last swine flu outbreak at Fort Dix in 1976. The Philadelphia Enquirer focuses on David Sencer, who was forced from his job at the CDC after vaccine programme developed in response to that outbreak led to deaths.

The LA Times also has good coverage of the 76 outbreak.

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 29, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Swine flu is spreading. The World Health Organisation has raised its pandemic status to level 4 (see Nature’s Briefing: Swine flu jumps continents, and the Swine Flu special).

The H1N1 virus has already appeared in North America and Europe. Now it appears to have reached Israel, where the BBC reports that Israel's deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman “said the outbreak should be renamed "Mexican flu" in deference to Jewish and Muslim sensitivities over pork”.

Share prices have been sent haywire by the flu, with markets first dropping, then recovering, and probably dropping again by the time you read this. Oil prices are also down amid fears over the impact on the world’s already fragile economy and a likely drop in air travel.

Flights to Mexico are already being cancelled, with governments cautioning against “non-essential travel” to the country at the centre of the outbreak. Online pharmacies are already reporting a run on the flu drug Tamiflu.

Obama’s people have also been assailed with questions about his meeting with Felipe Solis, the Mexican archaeologist who died recently. The Mexican Ministry of Health has already denied initial reports that Solís had contracted swine flu (see: RIP Felipe Solís)

If this is all too depressing there is a slight silver line, not least if you make flu drugs or play the market. The Times business columnist Ian King writes:

Never mind drug stocks — there's nothing like a good health scare to give speculators a shot in the arm. Accordingly, shares of the antiviral makers GlaxoSmithKline and Roche rose on the Mexican swine flu outbreak. But the virus, which has caused more than 100 deaths, created trading opportunities everywhere.

It was a day of swine and roses for anyone short of travel and tourism stocks...

And finally, Obama had the following to say: “If there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it's today.”

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 28, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Felipe Solís, a prominent Mexican archaeologist and director of the country's National Museum of Anthropology, has died of complications from pneumonia. The Ministry of Health has denied initial reports that Solís had contracted swine flu.

Solís was born in 1944 in Mexico City and had worked as an archaeologist for the National Institute for Anthropology and History since 1972. He helped uncover some of the most important archaeological finds in Mexico, including an Aztec aqueduct near Mexico City and the Coyolxauhqui stone, a famous sculpture of a dismembered Aztec goddess discovered at the city's Templo Mayor in 1978 (right).

More recently, he had helped curate museum exhibitions in Bonn and Chicago. He had over 200 articles published and authored or co-authored 30 books on archaeology, anthropology and history. He died on 23 April as the result of a cardiac arrest caused by "complications from pneumonia," according to the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry denied initial reports that claimed Solís was a victim of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico City. Those reports gained international attention, in part because Solís had met with US President Barack Obama a week before his death.

Image: Wikipedia

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 27, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

More than 80 people have died and more than 1,300 suspected cases exist in Mexico in the swine flu outbreak that has emergency-preparedness personnel swinging into action around the globe.

According to the World Health Organization, the swine flu strain has been confirmed in 18 people in Mexico and 20 in the United States, including cases in New York City, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California. Suspected cases are being investigated from New Zealand to Spain.

Richard Besser, acting director for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday that as doctors look for more cases of the disease, he expects those numbers to rise. In a press conference from the White House, he and Department of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano sought to reassure the US public that officials were monitoring the outbreak. The strain appears to be resistant to two common flu drugs but is susceptible to the newer drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. US officials have ordered the release of one-quarter of the nation's emergency stockpile of 50 million doses of these drugs, to be given preferentially to states with confirmed cases of the disease.

Mexico has closed down schools in and around Mexico City, and urged people to stay home and wash their hands.

The World Health Organization's influenza pandemic alert system remains at 3. Raising it to a 4 would reflect "sustained human-to-human transmission" reflecting "community-level outbreaks".

Hong Kong, still reeling from its experience with the SARS epidemic, on Sunday ordered anyone who felt sick and had traveled through affected areas in the past seven days to go to a hospital.

The H1N1 strain contains genetic contributions from human, swine and avian influenza.

Posted by Alex Witze on April 26, 2009
Categories: Swine flu | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)