Swine Flu A(H1N1)

'Rapidly fatal' swine flu kills in different ways: study

2009-12-25T21:47:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON — People who die of swine flu contract a "rapidly fatal" form of the disease and tend to die of lung injury, although it strikes different people in different ways, an autopsy study showed Thursday.

In the first study of its kind, researchers in Brazil examined 21 patients aged one to 68 who died in Sao Paulo with confirmed (A)H1N1 infections in July and August.

All 21 patients "presented a progressive and rapidly fatal form of the disease," the study, which will be published in the January 1 issue of the American Thoracic Society's "American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine", found.

All were found to have died of severe acute lung injury, but with three distinct patterns of damage to the lungs, the study said, indicating to the researchers that swine flu "killed in distinct ways".

"All patients have a picture of acute lung injury," said the study's lead author, Thais Mauad, an associate professor of the Department of Pathology at Sao Paulo University.

But some of the patients had only acute lung injury while in others it was associated with necrotizing bronchiolitis -- severe inflammation of the small airway passages in the lungs -- and in others there was "a hemorrhagic pattern," Mauad said.

Patients with necrotizing bronchiolitis were more likely to also have a bacterial co-infection, while patients with heart disease and cancer were more likely to have a hemorrhagic condition in their lungs.

"It is important to bear in mind that patients with underlying medical conditions must be adequately monitored, since they are at greater risk of developing a severe H1N1 infection," said Mauad.

Sixteen of the patients had chronic underlying health conditions, such as heart disease or cancer, the study found.

The researchers also found evidence of an "aberrant immune response" in the lungs of some of the patients, which "suggests that an overly vigorous host inflammatory response triggered by the viral infection may spill over to and damage lung tissue, causing acute lung injury and fatal respiratory failure," said John Heffner, a former president of the American Thoracic Society.

P.S. Boost your immune system by eating Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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H1N1 flu activity down, H1N1 flu-associated deaths up-Is H1N1 getting more deadly?

2009-12-14T07:02:00.000-08:00

The latest U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) swine flu update shows that H1N1 flu activity is decreasing once more, for the 6th week in a row. H1N1 swine flu-associated deaths, however, are going up. At the same time, reports of an H1N1 mutation that attacks the lungs and is resistant to the antiviral medication Tamiflu are circulating here in the U.S., as well as other locations around the world.

CDC swine flu update

According to the CDC swine flu update for December 11, 2009, key flu indicators are all decreasing, except for H1N1 flu-related deaths. Doctor's visits for flu and hospitalizations for flu have gone down for the 6th week in a row, and there are now only 14 states reporting widespread flu activity. At the same time, swine flu-related deaths have increased. This may result from the spread of a deadlier strain of H1N1 mutation that attacks the lungs and is resistant to the antiviral medication Tamiflu.

H1N1 mutation D225G/D225N

Learn more about the H1N1 mutation that attacks the lungs here:

New York swine flu victims show lung damage

Utah patient with lung hemmorhaging

Source of swine flu samples may explain low numbers of D225G

Swine flu vaccine ineffective against D225G in Ukraine

H1N1 deaths increase as mutations combine

Fatality in France due to mixture of swine flu mutations

Iowa medical examiner reports local H1N1 lung damage

Demographic information in Ukraine fatalities linked to D225G receptor binding domain

D225G swine flu mutation same as Spanish flu

Swine flu mutation H274Y/H274Y

Learn more about the swine flu mutation that is resistant to Tamiflu here:

Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 spreading

Swine flu pandemic complicated by antiviral resistance

Tamiflu doesn't work anymore

Tamiflu-resistant strain of H1N1 found around the world

P.S. BOOST your immunity by eating Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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H1N1 Swine Flu Less Severe Than Feared

2009-12-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

H1N1 swine flu won't be as severe as was feared, but the pandemic is nothing to sneeze at, new predictions suggest.

When the fall/winter wave of H1N1 swine flu is over, it will have been no more severe than an average flu season, predict Harvard researcher Marc Lipsitch, DPhil, and colleagues from the U.K. Medical Research Council and the CDC.

"The good news is that ... the severity of the H1N1 flu may be less than initially feared," Lipsitch says in a news release.

There are some big asterisks next to that prediction:

* Most of the deaths and hospitalizations in a typical flu season are elderly people. Most of those killed or hospitalized in the H1N1 swine flu pandemic are children and young adults.
* Deaths attributed to seasonal flu include heart attacks, strokes, and other fatal conditions triggered by the flu. Nearly all deaths attributed to H1N1 flu are due to flu or to bacterial complications of flu.
* The new predictions would be four or five times higher in populations without access to mechanical ventilation or intensive care.
* All bets are off if the H1N1 swine flu shifts to older populations.

Even so, the new numbers are cause for relief if not for celebration. Before the 2009 H1N1 swine flu came along, planners were preparing for a pandemic with a case/fatality ratio of 0.1% -- that is, for one death in every 1,000 symptomatic infections.

The Lipsitch team now calculates that the H1N1 swine flu has a case/fatality ratio no higher than 0.048% -- and maybe seven to nine times lower, depending on the methods used for calculation.

"This is a serious disease," Lipsitch says in the news release. He noted that between one in 70 and one in 600 people who fall ill with H1N1 swine flu will be hospitalized.

The CDC has been careful not to characterize the severity of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The new predictions are very much in line with CDC's working estimates, says Beth Bell, MD, MPH, associate director for science at the CDC's immunization and respiratory disease center.

"This study sends the message that this is primarily a young person's disease and highlights the importance of taking advantage of this window of opportunity to get the vaccine and take preventive measures," Bell tells WebMD. "While most people who get this illness do OK, it can be very severe -- and the severity is concentrated in younger people."
H1N1 Swine Flu: Same Lung Damage as 1918 Flu

Highlighting the H1N1 flu's ability to turn deadly is a new study from James R. Gill, MD, from the New York City Medical Examiner's office, and Jeffrey Taubenberger, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health.

Detailed autopsies of 34 people who died of H1N1 swine flu show that the virus typically kills by damaging the upper airways, although damage in the lower airways and deep lung was not uncommon.

Strikingly, the damage was very familiar.

"This pattern of pathology in the airway tissues is similar to that reported in autopsy findings of victims of both the 1918 and 1957 influenza pandemics," Taubenberger says in a news release.

P.S. Boost your immunity by eating Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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A "window of opportunity" for preventing another wave of Swine Flu

2009-12-08T05:53:00.000-08:00

With activity of the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus declining across the country and the availability of the vaccine against it growing, health authorities have "a window of opportunity" for preventing or minimizing another wave of infections in the coming months, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a news conference this morning.

In planning for the short-term future, CDC officials conducted an informal poll of about a dozen internationally recognized flu experts, asking them if they thought there would be another wave of infection this winter. "About half said yes, half said no, and one said 'Flip a coin,' " Frieden said. "We don't know what the future will hold."

Figures released Monday showed that influenza activity had declined for the fourth consecutive week, with only 32 states now reporting widespread activity, down from 48 states a month ago. "Flu is going down, but it is far from gone," Frieden said. "The flu season lasts until May. Only time will tell what the flu season will bring."

Frieden said nearly 70 million doses of swine flu vaccine are now available, an increase of 9 million since Wednesday. "We are seeing that more people are getting vaccinated and protected and, as that happens, it becomes harder for the virus to spread," he said. But he also cautioned that, as more people become immune, that puts increasing pressure on the virus to mutate to a new form.

Frieden spoke briefly about the mutated strains of the virus that have been detected in some patients recently in Norway and China. There has been speculation that the mutant form may be somewhat more virulent because it is able to penetrate farther into the lungs. But Frieden noted that the virus has been observed sporadically during the pandemic and many scientists believe that it is a mutation that evolves in an infected patient, allowing the virus to burrow farther into the lungs. He noted that physicians have seen patients with the mutant strain deep in the lungs and a different strain higher up, suggesting that the mutant strain was created in situ. In any case, he added, there is no evidence that the mutant strain is spreading and "it is not likely to become the dominant strain."

P.S. Boost your immunity by eating Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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RP gets 1st batch of A(H1N1) vaccines

2009-11-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

The Philippines received its first batch of A(H1N1) vaccines from the World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday morning, Malacañang said.

A Palace statement said that the WHO turned over the influenza vaccines to the Philippine government during a ceremony at Bahay Pangarap in Malacañang.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo received the vaccines from Dr. Soe-Nyunt-U, WHO country representative to the Philippines, the statement said.

The donation was made under a memorandum of agreement signed by WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III last Nov. 25.

WHO will supply the country's need for the flu vaccines manufactured by CSL Limited, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA, Green Cross Corporation, MedImmune LLC, Novartis AG and Sanofi Pasteur SA.

The Philippines is the first country to receive such a donation, the statement noted.

Government is undertaking preemptive moves for a possible second wave of A(H1N1) infections, even as health officials reassured the public there is no sign of the A(H1N1) virus growing nastier.

Last month, Duque said his department is in constant communication with the WHO, and there is no sign of a more severe strain of the A(H1N1) virus.

“We are in constant contact with WHO. There is no evidence up to now of a nastier strain of the AH1N1 virus. So our mitigation and containment measures will remain," Duque said in a radio interview then.

Duque reiterated there is no cause for alarm as far as A(H1N1) is concerned even if the virus is already in the Philippines, saying it is already considered a pandemic.

Besides, he said, more than 99 percent of A(H1N1) cases in the Philippines had recovered, with the 30 who died having suffered from other diseases like heart and liver disease.

In August 5, 2009, the WHO reported that 1,154 have died since the virus emerged in April.

More than 300 of the new deaths were in the Americas, bringing the death toll in that region to 1,008 since the virus first emerged in Mexico and the United States, and developed into the global epidemic, the WHO said.

It added that is no evidence that the new virus is mutating into a more dangerous form.

On the other hand, Duque had said that the government already issued 19 guidelines on what to do with A(H1N1) cases, adding that the DOH will monitor developments on the virus.

P.S. Boost your immune system by eating lots of Vitamin C and Vitamin D foods and fruits.

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Swine flu facts, signs and reminders

2009-11-05T09:24:00.000-08:00

H1N1 is not any worse than the seasonal flu it's just who is being more greatly affected that is different that includes children.

So we have some reminders for parents when it comes to what to look for and when to call the doctor.

The symptoms of all types of flu include: fever, coughing, sore throat, headache, chills and fatigue. With the H1N1 virus these symptoms could be more severe. They may also include vomiting and diarrhea.

But even though most cases of the virus are mild we do know children are at a greater risk.

So far, 95 children have died from H1N1 since the spring. That's more than the number of kids who die from the seasonal flu each year.

Because of that parents should be on the lookout and call your doctor if your child does not seem to be getting better or could be getting worse. Virtua E.R. Doctor F.J. Campbell says those signs include: a fever that lasts more than a couple of days or any difficulty breathing.

"If you really see them really taking much deeper breaths and more rapid breaths that's the time to really pay attention and make that phone call and let your doctor make the decision if it's serious or not."

And he says for parents of kids with respiratory problems such as asthma they should be in contact with their child's doctor if they get sick. Kids with underlying problems are at a greater risk for complications. It's also recommended all children get the H1N1 vaccine as soon as it's available.

One more tip for parents if your child is sick with a fever then seems to get better but then a few days later they have a fever again that's another sign to call your doctor.

P.S. Boost your immunity by eating Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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Swine Flu May Infect Internet Too ( Part 2 )

2009-11-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

Such a reduction would require adjusting the configuration file within each customer's modem to temporarily reduce the maximum transmission speed that that modem was capable of performing—for example, by reducing its incoming capability from 7 Mbps to 1 Mbps.

However, according to providers the GAO spoke with for its report, such reductions could violate the agreed-upon customer service levels for which customers have paid. In the end the GAO said that technically feasible options would likely require a government directive.

Some of the GAO's other conclusions included:

•Voluntary actions taken by the general public could have significant potential to reduce the surges in traffic loads that residential users may experience during a pandemic. For example, the general public could be asked to limit video streaming, gaming, and peer-to-peer and other bandwidth-intensive applications during daytime work hours.

•Shutting down specific Internet sites would also reduce congestion, although the GAO said many industry players expressed concerns about the feasibility of such an approach. Overall Internet congestion could be reduced if Web sites that accounted for significant amounts of traffic—such as those with video streaming—were shut down during a pandemic.

•Providers could help reduce the potential for a pandemic to cause Internet congestion by ongoing expansions of their networks' capacities. Some providers are upgrading their networks by moving to higher capacity modems or fiber-to-the-home systems. For example, some cable providers are introducing a network specification that will increase the down load capacity of residential networks from the 38 Mbps to about 152 to 155 Mbps.

•Until DHS develops an effective response strategy, coordinates with federal and other partners on actions to take, determines whether sufficient authorities to act exist or are sought, and evaluates the need for a public campaign, employees in critical sectors of the nation's economy, including those in financial services, might not be able to effectively telework or otherwise communicate or transmit data over the Internet during a pandemic.

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Swine Flu May Infect Internet Too ( Part 1 )

2009-11-01T17:06:00.000-08:00

Government watchdogs are warning that the H1N1 pandemic will led to increased Internet usage. This could create serious network access congestion, says Network

World While sounding a bit like Chicken Little, Federal government watchdogs today said that the H1N1 pandemic will cause a significant increase in the use of the Internet by students and teleworkers that would create serious network access congestion. Such problems may need to be fixed by government involvement or service providers limiting network access or by asking people to lay off the streaming videos for a while.

Congestion affecting home users is likely to occur because the parts of providers' DSL, cable, satellite, and other types of networks that provide Internet access from residential neighborhoods are not designed to carry all the potential traffic that users could generate in a particular neighborhood or that all connect to a particular aggregating device, a Government Accountability Office report looking at the impact of a pandemic on the Internet stated.

Internet congestion will be exacerbated by localities which may choose to close schools and these students, confined at home, will likely look to the Internet for entertainment, including downloading or streaming videos, playing online games, and engaging in potential activities that may consume large amounts of network capacity, the GAO stated.

Although predicting that the most severe congestion would occur within residential access networks, a study overseen by the Department of Homeland Security also noted that pandemic-related congestion was possible in other parts of the networks that comprise the Internet, the GAO stated. DHS is responsible for ensuring that critical telecommunications infrastructure stays up and running during periods of national duress.

For example, users could experience congestion at peering points where traffic is transferred between service providers because of potential differences in transmission capacity. Additionally, teleworkers connecting to their enterprise networks could overload various components of these networks, such as firewalls or servers that provide access to various applications because some businesses' networks may not have scaled these devices to accommodate the anticipated increase in telecommuting traffic during a pandemic, the GAO stated.

Can service providers ease the pain? Maybe. Providers' options for addressing expected pandemic-related Internet congestion include providing extra capacity, using network management controls, installing direct lines to organizations, temporarily reducing the maximum transmission rate, and shutting down some Internet sites. Each of these methods is limited either by technical difficulties or questions of authority, the GAO stated.

Providers said they would focus on ensuring services for the federal government priority communication programs and performing network management techniques to re-route traffic around congested areas in regional networks or the national backbone. However, these activities would likely not relieve congestion in the residential Internet access networks, the GAO stated.

In the current network environment, providers' capability to address pandemic-related Internet congestion by prioritizing certain users' traffic, including that of financial sector teleworkers, is limited. Although providers cannot identify users at the computer level to manage traffic from that point, two providers told the GAO that if the residential Internet access network in a particular neighborhood was experiencing congestion, a provider could attempt to reduce congestion by reducing the amount of traffic that each user could send to and receive from his or her network.

To be continued............

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Swine flu: Answers to your H1N1 questions

2009-10-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

As more and more people are getting infected by the dreaded swine flu, questions linger about the dangers of the virus and the effectiveness of inoculations. Here are edited queries from Tribune readers, with answers:

Q: What is the comparison between the fatality rates for H1N1 flu and seasonal flu, and is H1N1 considered more of a danger than seasonal flu?

A: Since the pandemic began in April, more than 1,000 deaths from H1N1 have occurred, including about 100 children, and more than 20,000 hospitalizations in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimates that about 36,000 people die of seasonal flu-related causes annually, although the number fluctuates.

It is good news, according to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, that the swine flu continues to be "very mild" for most people. "But there is no question we are seeing very severe cases hit in populations normally not susceptible to the flu, and without underlying health conditions in some cases," she said this week. "Young people and pregnant women have been particular targets of that."

Q: Is it true that people who get the H1N1 mist are getting a live virus which they can shed, infecting people with depressed immune systems?

A: The nasal spray is made from live, weakened virus. There is a bit of "shedding" -- where some of the vaccine escapes. But the amount is so small, there is no need to worry about spreading it in the general population, according to Dr. Julie Morita, medical director of the Chicago Department of Public Health's immunization program.

The only concern, she said, is among health care professionals who care for people whose immune system is compromised. "A doctor in a regular setting can get the nasal spray and not worry about shedding, but those taking care of people with a weakened system should not get the vaccine or go to work immediately after taking it," she said.

Clinical studies show the risk of getting infected after contact with attenuated, or weakened, vaccine virus is minuscule -- between 0.6 and 2.4 percent.

Q: My children, ages 2 and 5, got the first round of H1N1 shots, but the doctor said she wasn't sure she will have the second dose a month later. Are they protected with just one shot?

A: Health officials recommend that children under the age of 10 receive two doses of vaccine, separated by four weeks. Health officials said every attempt should be made to obtain the second dose in order to achieve full protection. More vaccine is on its way so people should check regularly with their doctor, school and local health departments.

Q: Our mom is really sick and we aren't sure if it's swine flu. If we wear masks and sort of keep a distance from her, will we be OK?

A: A bit more than that is needed to avoid the virus, according to the CDC. If possible, your mom should be in a private room away from common areas of the house and use a separate bathroom. If she has to be around others, she should wear a mask. Everyone should wash hands regularly. If you are under 24, you might consider getting an H1N1 vaccine.

Q: I am pregnant with triplets, due to give birth in 10 days. I brought my 2-year-old son, my husband and my mom (our caretaker) to Truman College's clinic on Saturday. We waited in line for 5 1/2 hours for the vaccine. ... What kind of screening are they doing for these shots, just first come, first served?

A: With a limited supply of vaccine at each clinic, Chicago Health Department officials are trying to limit it to high-priority groups. But mostly they are relying on people being honest when asked in line if they fall into one of those groups.

"We're trusting people to do the right thing," said Julie Morita, director of the department's immunization program.

According to Tim Hadac, a department spokesman, officials are confident that nearly everyone who got vaccines at the first clinics was in a high risk group, although a "small percentage" might have slipped through. Some people had asthma, diabetes, immune disorders and other chronic illnesses that would not always be obvious to other people in line, he said.

Overall, those eligible for early vaccines are health care workers; pregnant women; children and young adults ages 6 months to 24 years; people who live with or care for infants younger than 6 months; and people ages 25 to 64 with chronic health conditions. The public clinics are being offered Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at six City Colleges campuses as long as there is demand and supply.

Q: We are going to visit my in-laws for Thanksgiving and we were told we can't see my father-in-law unless we have H1N1 shots. I have chronic sinusitis plus a diminished immune system, so how likely am I to find the vaccine before Thanksgiving? Is there a list of locations that have the vaccine?

A: You should call your doctor or health care provider to see if it is available, and where. Once the vaccine is readily available, a list of health departments and pharmacies will be made available on the Illinois Department of Public Health Web site, www.idph.state.il.us.

The vaccine continues to be in short supply across the country because of production delays. Health officials have said they expect a better supply by mid-November and that by early December, the vaccine should be widely available. Most vaccine is now going to local health departments and hospitals.

Q: The city of Chicago has the vaccine. DuPage County has it. Cook County Department of Health -- nada. Why is Cook County so behind?

A: Cook County Health Department officials said they got their initial 20,000 doses of vaccine late last week. Six thousand doses were allocated to hospitals in suburban Cook County and about 5,000 doses to public schools in Palatine, the first district designated for student vaccinations. Other doses have been reserved for health care workers at the county Health Department. No vaccine is currently available for public clinics, a county spokesman said. Officials were "cautiously optimistic" the department will get more vaccine early next week that will allow for public clinics to begin soon in suburban Cook County.

Q: Are there precautions a family should take regarding trick-or-treat candy this Halloween?

A: State and local health officials recommend giving out wrapped candy. Rather than allowing children to reach into a bowl, hand it to them. Children should wash their hands, use sanitizer and wash any fruit or other food.

P.S. Boost your natural immunity by eating lots of Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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Obama Declares Swine Flu a National Emergency

2009-10-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama has declared the H1N1 swine flu a national emergency.

His proclamation, signed Friday night and released by the White House Saturday morning, will allow hospitals and doctors' offices to get legal waivers of federal rules so they can handle large numbers of sick people as the outbreak spreads.

"The H1N1 is moving rapidly, as expected. By the time regions or health-care systems recognize they are becoming overburdened, they need to implement disaster plans quickly," White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said Saturday, according to the Washington Post.

The waivers, which will be issued by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, still require individual requests by the hospitals, Cherlin noted.

The goal, according to the Associated Press, is to remove bureaucratic roadblocks and make it easier for sick people to seek treatment and for medical personnel to provide it immediately. That could mean fewer hurdles involving Medicare, Medicaid or health privacy regulations, the AP added.

The H1N1 swine flu is now widespread in 46 states, and there have been 1,000 laboratory-confirmed deaths since April, according to the latest estimates released Friday by U.S. health officials.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference Friday, "We have already had millions of cases of pandemic influenza in the United States, and the numbers continue to increase."

At the same time, he said, production delays continue to hamper distribution of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.

The vaccine is growing more slowly in egg-based cultures than manufacturers had anticipated, resulting in fewer available doses at this time, Frieden explained.

As of Friday, there were 16.1 million doses on hand nationwide, up from 14.1 on Wednesday, Frieden said. And there will be far fewer than the 40 million doses originally planned for the end of October, he added.

"Vaccine availability is increasing steadily, but far too slowly," Frieden said. "It's frustrating to all of us. We are nowhere near where we thought we would be by now. We are not near where the vaccine manufacturers predicted we would be."

The vaccine that is available comes in both nasal mist and injectable forms. The first doses were only the nasal spray, called FluMist, designed for healthy people 2 to 49 years of age. But now, more than half the doses are injectable, he said.

While children continue to be particularly vulnerable to the disease, Freiden said, "we are seeing it increasingly affect young adults as well as children. We are still not seeing significant numbers of cases among the elderly, and that's characteristic of this virus."

That's also a marked difference from run-of-the-mill seasonal flu, which typically poses a much bigger threat to the elderly.

There is encouraging news, Frieden said. The genetic makeup of the H1N1 virus hasn't changed, meaning the swine flu vaccine and the antiviral drug Tamiflu are a good match.

Frieden said the H1N1 flu would probably occur in waves, but "we can't predict how high, how far or long the wave will go, or when the next will come."

"We are now in the second wave of pandemic influenza and whether this will continue through the fall into the winter, whether it will go away and come back in traditional flu season, only time will tell," he said.

P.S. Boost your resistance against swine flu by eating lots of Vitamin C and Vitamin D rich foods and fruits.

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Novartis Says Most U.S. Swine Flu Shots Ready in 2010

2009-10-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

Most of Novartis AG’s swine flu vaccine may not reach the U.S. until the first quarter of 2010, almost at the end of flu season, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Vasella said today in an interview on CNBC.

“I feel compassion for those people who are waiting,” he said.

The Basel, Switzerland, drugmaker is the biggest U.S. supplier of the new vaccine, and U.S. health officials have reported the country’s overall supply will reach 28 million doses by the end of the month after previously projecting 40 million to 50 million by mid-October. H1N1 is widespread in 41 states, has hospitalized more than 5,000 and has caused the deaths of 292 people since Sept. 1, 90 percent of whom were younger than 65, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Oct. 20.

Production at Novartis is not being held up now, Vasella said today. The initial problem was the lack of antigen, the key ingredient that induces immunity, he said.

“There was one-fifth of the normal yield,” Vasella said.

Novartis received the first seed strains from the CDC and Geneva-based World Health Organization and was forced to go back and get others, Sarah Coles, a spokeswoman for the company, said in an e-mail.

Half the Yield

All the other vaccine makers with contracts to supply to the U.S. -- Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis SA, London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc and AstraZeneca Plc, and CSL Ltd. based in Melbourne -- received seed strains at the same time to develop the shots, CDC officials have said. The strains yielded half as much antigen as that for a typical seasonal flu, Aphaluck Bhatiasevi, a WHO spokesman, said Sept. 18.

Novartis is moving swiftly to increase the pace of its output including transferring 300 workers to the swine flu vaccine production lines, Vasella said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said yesterday there were “manufacturing glitches” because new production lines were set up to accommodate the swine flu vaccine. Sebelius didn’t specify which companies had the glitches. Novartis is contracted to deliver about 35 percent of the 250 million doses ordered by the U.S. government, according to statements from HHS.

Novartis Statement

“Novartis has taken steps to accelerate the post- production process and delivery of vaccine,” according to a statement from the company released after Vasella’s interview. “Among other things, we have prioritized production of pre- filled syringes despite substantially slower filling rates. Along with the low yields, these efforts have led to delays in vaccine supply.”

Novartis began a large-scale fill-and-finish operation on the swine flu vaccine in early September after completing its seasonal flu campaign, the company said in its statement.

AstraZeneca’s MedImmune Inc., producer of a nasal spray version of the vaccine, was about 300,000 doses behind in its production, Karen Lancaster, a company spokeswoman, said Oct. 20. MedImmune, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, had shipped at least 6.5 million doses to the U.S. government and planned to send a total of 11 million by the end of October, she said.

Sanofi said it began shipping its vaccine on Sept. 29, “a little bit earlier than anticipated,” and was tracking “pretty much on schedule,” Donna Cary, a spokeswoman, said Oct. 20.

CSL was “on schedule” to delivery its 36 million doses, Sheila Burke, a spokeswoman, said Oct. 20.

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FDA warns: Swine flu scams lurk on the Internet

2009-10-23T20:49:00.000-07:00

People be warned. Many people feared this pandemic and are desperate themselves to seek a vaccine which could protect them against this dreaded disease. But some are capitalizing on this tragic event by claiming they have the means to battle this global pandemic.

Air "sterilizers." A photon machine. Supplement pills to boost the immune system. Protective shampoos and face masks. Even fake Tamiflu.

These and other products making bogus claims to prevent or treat swine flu are flooding the Internet as scam artists prey on the public's fears while the vaccine is delayed and real Tamiflu — made by Switzerland's Roche Group — is rationed.

Every problem, it would seem, is a sales opportunity. Some of the products appear to have been pitched for other emergencies, such as one called "Quake Kare" and masks and purifiers sold during the SARS scare.

Federal officials have sent warning letters to promoters of more than 140 swine flu-related products, including well-known alternative medicine advocate Dr. Andrew Weil for his "Immune Support Formula."

Consumer Reports also has warned subscribers to be wary.

"It's harmful, disappointing, frustrating to see folks take advantage of the public like this," said Dr. John Santa, who evaluates health claims for Consumer Reports.

Fraudulent products emerged shortly after swine flu did last spring — about 10 a day, said Alyson Saben, head of a swine flu consumer fraud team formed by the Food and Drug Administration. The pace slowed over the summer as the flu abated, but "it's picked up" in recent weeks, she said. "We are seeing new sites pop up."

Most worrisome: sites that claim to sell Tamiflu without a prescription. The FDA bought and tested five such products. One contained powdered talc and generic Tylenol — no Tamiflu. Several others contained some Tamiflu but were not approved for sale in the U.S.

"We have no idea of the conditions under which they were manufactured. They could contain contaminated, counterfeit, impure or subpotent or superpotent ingredients," Saben said.

Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza are the only drugs recommended for treating swine flu.

Rogue Web sites are not the only ones trying to cash in on flu fears. Makers of some well-established products are making claims that may be close to the line, the FDA says.

This week, the makers of Dial Soap, Kleenex, Clorox and other big brands launched a joint promotional campaign costing up to $1 million. The FDA is reviewing the campaign, which includes a video that says:

"Germs are tiny organisms that can cause disease. According to the CDC, up to 80 percent of infectious diseases, like the flu, are spread by your hands. That's why frequent, proper handwashing is so important in preventing spread of the flu, other viruses and germs. An antibacterial soap like Dial Complete foaming hand wash kills 99.9 percent of germs."

Flu is caused by a virus, so killing bacteria is of uncertain benefit.

The campaign is "not being specific down to swine flu," said Scott Moffitt, an official with Dial Corp.'s parent company, Germany-based Henkel AG. He also contends the video is not misleading, even though the germ-killing claim follows a sentence about flu and other viruses.

One product that drew a warning letter from the FDA is the Photon Genie, a gadget that delivers "energy waves." Its Web site claimed it "helps strengthen the immune system, and a strong immune system is KEY to preventing swine flu symptoms and KEY to treating swine flu."

The site has since removed the swine flu claim but "other claims remain," Saben said.

The group behind the Web site, the Skilling Institute of Phoenix, "is not marketing, and will not market in the future, any product that is intended to diagnose, mitigate, prevent, treat or cure the H1N1 flu virus," its director, Warren Starnes, wrote in an e-mail.

Some products the FDA warned about contain silver, such as "Swine Flu...Gone," made by Secrets of Eden.

"Spray 'Swine Flu...Gone' with ionic silver on your hands and on any surface where these germs may exist and kill the virus," its site had claimed.

Secrets of Eden sells supplements and oils with a biblical flair, said its general manager, Rick Strawcutter, a former pastor in Adrian, Mich. The staff "got a little carried away" on marketing for one product and "drew the ire of the FDA," he said.

"It was not worth contesting," so he ordered a stop to it, Strawcutter said.

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says silver "may cause harmful health effects," depending on the amount and type of exposure.

Dr. Andrew Weil's site had this problem language, the FDA's warning letter said: "...during the flu season, I suggest taking a daily antioxidant, multivitamin-mineral supplement, as well as astragalus, a well-known immune-boosting herb that can help ward off colds and flu. You might also consider ... the Weil Immune Support Formula which contains both astragalus and immune-supportive polypore mushrooms."

Weil issued a statement saying the content "was primarily educational" about how to avoid the flu, and that he had directed his Web site team to remove and review it for compliance with federal rules.

Doctors, too, are being warned not to prescribe unproven remedies, such as drugs not shown to be safe and effective for swine flu. In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, three FDA doctors caution against use of ribavirin, a drug approved in the U.S. for treating hepatitis C and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a childhood illness.

There have been reports of doctors wanting to try it for seriously ill flu patients, but it can cause a dangerous type of anemia and cannot be used in pregnant women because of the risk of birth defects, said the FDA's Dr. Debra Birnkrant.

"It shouldn't be used lightly" and needs to be tested in a clinical trial for flu, she said.

P.S. Boost your immune system by eating lots of Vitamin C or Vitamin D rich foods or fruits.

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Flu Story: A Pregnant Woman’s Ordeal

2009-10-21T20:10:00.000-07:00

The group most threatened by swine flu and most in need of the new vaccine, world health authorities agree, is that of pregnant women.

For example, Aubrey Opdyke.

On June 27, Ms. Opdyke, a 27-year-old waitress and former high-school swimmer who weighed 135 pounds before her pregnancy and had no health risks other than a smoking habit, came down with mild flu symptoms.

She finally came home from the hospital three weeks ago.

“At first, I didn’t think anything of it — just another flu bug,” Ms. Opdyke said recently. “But it really wrecked me. I probably shouldn’t have made it.”

In the four months she was hospitalized, she spent five weeks in a coma, suffered six collapsed lungs and a near-fatal seizure. High-pressure ventilation blew her up like a molten balloon until “she looked like she weighed 400 pounds,” her husband, Bryan, said, and she has stretch marks from her neck to her ankles. Her muscles and lungs are still so weak that she uses a walker.

While hospitalized, she missed seeing her 4-year-old daughter, Hope, learn to swim and start pre-school.

And, most important, she lost her baby. Parker Christine Opdyke, almost 27 weeks in the womb, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section on July 18, when her fetal heart rate plummeted during Ms. Opdyke’s third lung collapse. Her airways were too blocked to let a breathing tube in, possibly a side effect of the drugs saving her mother. She lived seven minutes.

On Oct. 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 100 pregnant women had been in intensive care with swine flu and 28 had died. That is a tiny fraction of what are believed to have been millions of cases in the country. But it is the best argument, federal officials say, for the drawn-out, expensive effort to make a swine flu vaccine.

Pregnant women are particularly susceptible because they are in the younger age group most likely to catch this new virus, while those over 50 who have had more flus rarely catch it. Moreover, pregnancy suppresses the immune system to protect the fetus, and the growing baby makes it harder for a mother to clear her lungs.

All but a few of the pregnant women who have died or been near death from swine flu are unknown. Privacy laws prevent health departments from releasing their names, and few families come forward.

The Opdykes did because “we wanted to get it out there how dangerous it can be,” Ms. Opdyke said.

“We have friends who get flu symptoms and say, ‘Oh, I’m not going to a doctor,’ ” Mr. Opdyke added. “And we say, ‘Do you not understand what we went through?’ I can’t imagine why there’s so much nonchalance.”

That nonchalance strikes close to home.

As they said this, Ms. Opdyke was doing her daily physical therapy, struggling to lift one-pound weights. Her therapist interrupted to announce that she opposed flu shots.

“Have you ever read the labels?” she asked. “They’re so full of toxins.”

Asked if she realized that a shot, had it existed in June, might have saved her client and her baby, she frowned and went back to her clipboard.

Unlike some other families that came forward, the Opdykes are not threatening to sue anyone.

They do not blame her obstetrician, even though she suggested acetaminophen the first time Ms. Opdyke called her and prescribed an antibiotic the second.

“Swine flu just wasn’t on our minds at all,” Ms. Opdyke said.

Nor are they angry at the Wellington Regional Medical Center. “I don’t think if I’d taken her anywhere else, she would have survived,” Mr. Opdyke said.

Her flu came on gradually, and she never had a high fever. But after a week of feeling exhausted and achy, she became delirious. When Mr. Opdyke drove her to the hospital, with his finger on the door-lock button for fear she would jump out, she could not tell the triage nurse her name.

Her blood oxygen level was below 70; normal is 95, and below 80 is life-threatening. Both lungs were full of fluid.

Thrashing, she knocked off oxygen masks and pulled out an intubation tube. Panic made her hyperventilate. Doctors finally sedated her into a paralytic coma to let the ventilator work.

She survived near-failure of her kidneys, then her lungs, damaged by continuous high-pressure oxygen, began collapsing. Mr. Opdyke was warned he might have to choose — her life or that of the baby, who was just at the border of survivability outside the womb.

“I said, ‘Save Aubrey,’ ” he said of the woman he married last year. “I can make another baby, but I can’t replace her.”

Her third lung collapse forced the issue. Parker had to be delivered, but she did not survive.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a photographers’ charity for families of premature infants, offered to take black-and-white pictures. Ms. Opdyke’s mother bathed Parker and brushed her hair.

“Some people don’t agree,” Mr. Opdyke said about having the photographs taken. “But for me there was no option. Aubrey wasn’t awake, she didn’t get to bond. If I didn’t do it, there’s no way I could make it up to her.”

Aubrey Opdyke started to recover, then developed a bacterial infection common to ventilator patients. She nearly succumbed, then rallied and doctors started to wean her off the coma-inducing drugs. She had weeks of hallucinations about a friendly white dog visiting her but could not ask about it because of the tube.

Mr. Opdyke took comfort from what he saw as divine signs. Dog is “God” backwards, he noted. And one day, in a panic because he had forgotten to wear his wife’s wedding ring around his neck, he saw a license plate reading “FAITH.”

Ms. Opdyke’s last crisis was a still-unexplained seizure during a family visit. Her mother had been painting her nails and blamed herself, thinking the fumes had done it.

Now that she is home, in the townhouse complex they rent near the West Palm Beach airport, Ms. Opdyke is struggling to regain her strength. Muscles atrophy into rubber bands; every day in a coma means two days’ recovery.

She apologizes for the messy yard; she would pick it up but barely has the strength to get upstairs to bed. Mr. Opdyke has gone back part-time to his job at UPS.

Mr. Opdyke worries he gave her the flu. “I was sick two weeks before,” he said. “I touch packages that have been touched a thousand times. If anybody’s going to catch it, it’s me.”

He said he had not yet looked at the bills. His insurance covered most, he said, “but it had to be over a million, and we owe 20 percent; I’m not ready for that many commas.”

Friends from their jobs and a Girl Scout charity that Ms. Opdyke once ran with her mother have raised over $10,000 by holding benefits, and small checks have come in after articles by local journalists. “It’s a lot of help,” Ms. Opdyke said. “It really shows the compassion of people.”

And does she want another baby?

“Yes,” she says firmly. “At first, I didn’t. Now I do. But I’ve got to get my strength back.”

P.S. Boost your immune system by eating Vitamin C & Vitamin D rich Foods and Fruits.

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Have H1N1 Swine Flu Symptoms? Beware false internet treatment promises

2009-10-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an advisory on October 15th warning consumers to use caution when ordering anything from the internet that claims to "diagnose, prevent, mitigate, treat or cure the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus", as many of these claims are questionable at best, even up to being outright lies. In addition, over 80 internet sellers of various products, largely dietary supplements, were warned on the 18th to remove claims that their products prevented or treated the H1N1 swine flu virus.

What Kind of Products for Swine Flu Were Being Offered?

Perhaps the most dangerous are false claims of supposed anti-viral drugs. One such product ordered by the FDA researchers, received in an unmarked envelope from India, contained no anti-viral drug at all, only talcum powder and acetaminophen.

Other products, the subject of the warning letters from the FDA, include ultraviolet lights which claim to kill the H1N1 swine flu virus, hand sanitizers, air filters, inhalers, and of course dietary supplements — one of which even claimed to be "more effective that the swine flu shot."

Does This Mean These Products are Completely Ineffective?

Not necessarily. What it means, is that none of these products have been scientifically tested for effectiveness against the H1N1 swine flu virus, and so under federal regulations they are not allowed to claim that they are. Many of them do help to combat viruses or help build the immune system to allow the body to fight off infection and symptoms. But the only products scientifically proven to be effective against the H1N1 swine flu virus, the FDA insists, are the swine flu vaccines, and the two anti-virals drugs approved for use with swine flu symptoms, Tamiflu and Relenza, and urges caution when considering anything else that claims to prevent or treat the H1N1 virus or swine flu symptoms.

P.S. boost your immune system by taking Vitamin C or Vitamin D rich Foods and Fruits.

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H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Trial in People with Asthma

2009-10-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

NIH prepares to launch 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine trial in people with asthma.

The National Institutes of Health is preparing to launch the first government-sponsored clinical trial to determine what dose of the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine is needed to induce a protective immune response in people with asthma, especially those with severe disease. The study is cosponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), both part of NIH.

"People with severe asthma often take high doses of glucocorticoids that can suppress their immune system, placing them at greater risk for infection and possibly serious disease caused by 2009 H1N1 influenza virus," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "We need to determine the optimal dose of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine that can be safely administered to this at-risk population and whether one or two doses are needed to produce an immune response that is predictive of protection."

The study plan has been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for review. With FDA allowing it to proceed, the clinical trial will be conducted at seven sites across the United States that participate in NHLBI's Severe Asthma Research Program.

This program already has a well-characterized group of participants with mild, moderate or severe asthma who may be eligible for this new study. These groups are largely distinguished by the amount and frequency of glucocorticoids needed to control asthma symptoms. People with mild disease may not need glucocorticoids, or may require low doses of inhaled glucocorticoids; those with moderate asthma need low to moderate doses of inhaled glucocorticoids; and those with severe asthma need high doses of inhaled glucocorticoids and frequently use oral glucocorticoids as well.

Individuals who already have been infected with 2009 H1N1 influenza or have received a 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccination will not be eligible for the study.

"The results of this study will have immediate implications for individuals with severe asthma as well as those who have milder asthma," says NHLBI Director Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D.
Early results from other clinical trials of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccines in healthy adults have shown that a single 15-microgram dose of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine without adjuvant is well tolerated and induces a strong immune response in most participants. The same vaccine also generates an immune response that is expected to be protective in healthy children ages 10 to 17 years. Ongoing trials are comparing the immune response to one and two doses of 15- or 30-micrograms of vaccine given three weeks apart in various populations.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that certain at-risk populations receive the new H1N1 vaccine as a priority before the general population. These target populations include pregnant women, health care providers and individuals with underlying chronic medical conditions, including asthma.

People who have severe asthma may be particularly at risk for infection with the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. A report published in 2004 suggested that some people who took high doses of glucocorticoids to treat their asthma may receive less protection from influenza vaccines against some strains of influenza. Early in the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak a CDC review of hospital records found that people with asthma have a four-fold increased risk of being hospitalized with infection compared to the general population.

The study will enroll approximately 350 people with mild, moderate and severe asthma. Participants will be organized into two groups: those with mild or moderate asthma and those with severe asthma. Half of the participants in each group will receive a 15-microgram dose of vaccine, and the other half a 30-microgram dose. Three weeks later, each participant will receive a second dose of the same amount. The strength of the immune response induced by the vaccine will be determined in blood samples by measuring the level of antibodies against 2009 H1N1 flu virus.

Safety data will be collected and examined throughout the course of the study by trial investigators and by an independent safety monitoring committee. Participants will be monitored for any side effects they may experience because of the vaccine, as well as asthma attacks that occur during the study period.

The vaccine to be used in the trial, manufactured by Novartis, contains inactivated 2009 H1N1 influenza virus and therefore cannot cause anyone to become infected with the virus.

The trial will be conducted at the following locations:
Cleveland Clinic, Ohio
Emory University, Atlanta
University of Pittsburgh Asthma Institute
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis

Detailed information about this study can be found on the ClinicalTrials.gov Web site at http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=H1N1+AND+asthma.

Additional information about NIAID-sponsored clinical trials of candidate H1N1 vaccines can be found here: Clinical Trials of 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccines Conducted by the NIAID-Supported Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units

(http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/QA/vteuH1N1qa.htm); Pediatric Trials of Candidate 2009 H1N1 Vaccine at NIAID Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs)

(http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/QA/qaH1N1pedvax.htm); NIAID Launches 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Trial in Pregnant Women

(http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/QA/H1N1pregnanttrials.htm); NIH Launches 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Trial in HIV-Infected Pregnant Women: Trial in HIV-Infected Children, Youth to Begin Next Week

(http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2009/H1N1HIVTrials.htm).
Visit www.flu.gov for one-stop access to U.S. government information on avian and pandemic influenza.

Also, visit NIAID's Web sites for more information about flu(http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Flu/) and asthma (http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/topics/asthma/) and NHLBI's Web site for more information about asthma (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Asthma/Asthma_WhatIs.html) .

For additional information about the NHLBI's Severe Asthma Research Program, contact the NHLBI Office of Communications at (301) 496-4236 or e-mail nhlbi_news@nhlbi.nih.gov.

NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at www.niaid.nih.gov.

Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) plans, conducts, and supports research related to the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart, blood vessel, lung, and blood diseases; and sleep disorders. The Institute also administers national health education campaigns on women and heart disease, healthy weight for children, and other topics. NHLBI press releases and other materials are available online at www.nhlbi.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH)—The Nation's Medical Research Agency—includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

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Benefits of swine flu vaccine greatly exceed the risks

2009-10-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

In a typical year, seasonal flu kills about 36,000 people — nearly all of them older than 65 and many with underlying health problems. But that's not the way the H1N1 swine flu will look this year. It strikes hardest at children and young adults, who have none of the immunity to the strain that older people apparently have. And though only a fraction of 1% of sufferers is likely to get seriously ill, almost a third of those who die may be otherwise healthy and robust.

Such an outcome, says Anthony Fauci, the federal government's top infectious disease expert, is "almost unheard of." Fauci told USA TODAY's editorial board this week that he has been dealing with infectious diseases for decades, "and I've never seen, in seasonal flu, a normal, robust healthy person die from influenza."

Yet, that tragic scenario is already playing out around the nation with swine flu. H1N1 influenza has killed 28 pregnant women and 60 children since April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials don't know why some otherwise healthy people die from H1N1, and they won't predict how many more might. But the trends suggest that thousands of young lives are at stake.

This picture, based not on conjecture but on science and observation, is not meant to frighten. It is meant as a sobering counter to those who apparently have no use for science, government or vaccines and are warning people to forgo protection against a very real threat.

Typical of the skeptics is political pundit Bill Maher, who tweeted this sage advice to thousands of Twitter followers last month: "If u get a swine flu shot ur an idiot."

As the H1N1 vaccine is about to become widely available, the saddest thing is that many people seem to be listening to the Mahers of the world. A University of Michigan poll in August found that only 40% of parents planned to get the H1N1 shot for their children. Some parents are even holding ill-advised "flu parties" to expose their children to H1N1 — a potentially fatal disease.

Some of the antipathy to the shots no doubt dates to the 1976 swine flu outbreak at Fort Dix, N.J., which caused one death and sent the government into overdrive down a tragic path. President Ford pledged to vaccinate everyone in the USA against an expected epidemic. But the flu never escaped Fort Dix. More than 500 of the 45 million people vaccinated got a rare neurological illness, Guillain-Barré. Dozens died.

Whether that was related to the vaccine is still unclear. But the program, quickly suspended, left many Americans with a fear of vaccines. Little wonder. The episode involved all risk and no benefit, because the flu turned out to be no threat.

That is clearly not the case today. Around the world, H1N1 has sickened millions, and 4,100 deaths have been reported. In the USA, since Aug. 30, more than 16,000 people have been hospitalized and nearly 1,400 have died from H1N1 or seasonal flu. The benefits of the vaccine, which authorities say is as safe as the seasonal flu shot, far outweigh any risk of side effects.

The decision whether to get it, for yourself or your children, should be driven by facts and science, not advice from people who play doctors on TV or the Internet.

P.S. Boost your immune system by taking Vitamin C rich foods and fruits.

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Protect your baby against swine flu by getting vaccinated, CDC says

2009-10-07T03:57:00.000-07:00

Babies can't get vaccinated for H1N1 virus, so parents and siblings should. Newborns have incomplete immune systems, putting them at higher risk for H1N1 flu virus. Babies under age 6 months cannot get flu vaccine, so the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says parents and siblings living with infants should get vaccinated. Caregivers of those babies are first in line for swine flu vaccine, as are children up to age 4.

If you get sick, try to stay away from the baby. Have a healthy person take over care duties. If you can't, consider wearing a surgical mask when in close contact with the baby. A blanket between mother and baby can block the virus. And of course, wash hands and keep them away from the mouth, eyes and nose.

Mothers should keep breast-feeding even if they get sick. Mother's milk is a baby's best food, filled with antibodies that can fight infections (unclear if it fights swine flu). The virus does not travel in mother's milk and it's OK to take flu medicine while nursing. If sick, express the milk and have others do the feeding.

P.S. Boost your immune system by knowing Vitamin C Benefits.

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Swine flu nasal spray or shot?

2009-10-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

We now know the first batch of the much anticipated swine flu vaccine has been shipped from the manufacturer and is on its way to undisclosed distribution centers around the country, including here in Central Florida. And according to the Orange County Health Department who gets its information from the State Health Department, the first batch is coming in the form of a nasal spray.

The next batch will be shipped next week, and is expected to come in the form of the shot. The mist, of course, is really geared toward children and adults who just don't like needles. But results of a new study just released comparing the seasonal flu shot with the flu mist show the shot is twice as effective. However, there have been no studies done comparing the swine flu mist vs. the shot.

In fact, health officials say that may not be the case with the swine flu, that the shot and the spray may be equally effective. Unfortunately for now, we'll have to wait to find out. The Orange County Health Department says both the mist and the shot will be available here in Central Florida by mid-October, but supplies will be limited.

"It's going to arrive initially in small amounts. Then we'll get more. People getting it first will be those at risk" "But with the FluMist, one little caveat, it has to go to healthy people, not the ones with underlying conditions and those at risk," said Orange County Health Department spokesman Dain Weister

The Health Department tells us anyone between the ages of 2 and 49 without any underlying health problems can get the nasal spray.

P.S. boost your immune system by heavy intake of vitamin C foods and supplements.

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Hong Kong swine flu precautions: chief executive

2009-09-30T01:30:00.000-07:00

HONG KONG — Hong Kong's chief executive said Monday authorities would take no chance in dealing with swine flu despite accusations of over-reacting since its first confirmed case was reported in May.

"We have taken every precaution to prevent the spread of the virus," the city's chief executive, Donald Tsang, said at the opening ceremony of the World Health Organization's annual Western Pacific meeting here.

"In some cases we have even been accused of over-reacting," he said, adding: "Following our relatively recent experiences with Avian Influenza and SARS, the government has not, and will not take any chances."

The 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed almost 300 people in the city.

Hong Kong was also the scene of the world's first reported major H5N1 bird flu outbreak among humans, in 1997, when six people died.

The city's hygiene campaign was ramped up when swine flu reached Asia, most notably when an entire hotel was locked down for a week in May with hundreds of guests inside after a Mexican guest was found to be infected with the virus.

In the few weeks following the hotel closure, Hong Kong saw a frenetic scramble for face masks at pharmacies and supermarkets.

The city's inhabitants frequently wear face masks in public and the government has run an extensive public information campaign on personal hygiene.

The government was criticised for over-reacting at the time.

With schools re-opening after the summer holidays in recent weeks, the virus has spread among children, forcing some schools to close again temporarily.

However, the authorities' vigilance seems to have paid dividends with only 13 people dying so far of the disease in Hong Kong, out of the total number of 22,054 confirmed cases as of Sunday.

The Department of Health has said the number of fatalities was only 0.07 percent of overall cases -- far lower than the global average of 0.6 percent.

P.S., Boost your immune system. Know more about Vitamin C Benefits.

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New swine flu wave hits Mexico, closings unlikely

2009-09-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

Looks like the dreaded Swine Flu is here to stay. The next wave of swine flu has arrived, and Mexicans are bracing for an outbreak that may be even larger than the one here last spring that became a pandemic.

Daily diagnoses reached higher levels in September than the H1N1 peak in April, with 483 new cases in just one day this month alone.

It's unlikely there will be large-scale closings of schools and stadiums, however, because health officials know the virus is usually mild if treated early.

"We know the situation is not as serious" as officials feared last spring, said Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova.

Still, 3,000 schools across Mexico were closed earlier this week as a result of the virus. That number has dropped to 128, Education Secretary Alonso Lujambio told senators Wednesday, as he said officials are still developing the criteria they will use to shut down schools in the future.

When the first cases of swine flu were confirmed in late April, Mexico's government immediately ordered the closure of all schools, museums, libraries and theaters in the capital. Within days, schools nationwide, restaurant dining rooms and other businesses shut down, streets mostly emptied and soldiers handed out millions of face masks.

Mexico could see up to 5 million cases of swine flu during this winter's flu season and deaths could reach 2,000, Cordova said.

Some hospitals already have the same number of swine flu patients as they had in April, he said Thursday. Officials are negotiating with laboratories to secure doses of a vaccine by October, he added.

Mexico had 29,417 reported cases and 226 deaths as of Friday.

The World Health Organization says more than 300,000 cases of H1N1 have been confirmed throughout the world, and more than 3,900 people have died from the virus.

P.S. Boost your immune system with Vitamin C rich foods and fruits.

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U.S.: Oct flu vaccination to be "a little bumpy"

2009-09-26T07:39:00.000-07:00

A top U.S. health official says the first weeks of October are going to be "a little bumpy" as the government distributes the supply the swine flu vaccine ready next week, knowing it will not be enough.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Friday his agency faced a dilemma because most of the U.S. H1N1 vaccine will be unavailable until mid- to late October.

"The choice was having vaccine stack up in a warehouse ... or getting it out as soon as it became available. We feel the only right answer is to get it out as rapidly as possible," Frieden told reporters in a telephone briefing.

But that move will add to the strain on state and local health departments that likely will have to turn people away.

"It's going to be a little bumpy," said Frieden.

The U.S. government said this week it will have 6 million to 7 million doses of swine flu vaccine ready next week, and another 40 million does by mid- to late October.

Production was expected to continue at a rate of 10 million to 20 million doses per week to a total of more than 250 million by year end.

Most of the vaccine that will be ready early will be the nasal spray vaccine made by AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit. It is approved for people aged 2-49, but is not recommended for people with certain underlying health problems, who have a higher risk of becoming severely ill if infected with the flu.

'BATCH BY BATCH'

The United States has ordered vaccine from five companies -- MedImmune, Sanofi-Aventis, Australia's CSL, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.

Frieden said the problem arose from working with different manufacturers. "It doesn't come out in one big drop. It comes out batch by batch," he said.

Frieden said vaccine was the best tool for fighting swine flu, which was declared a pandemic in June and is spreading widely in most of the United States.

Frieden urged Americans not to underestimate influenza, noting that many people mix up flu with mild respiratory viruses.

"Flu makes you pretty sick. You feel bad. If you've got an underlying health problem or you are unlucky, you can get very sick. You need to take the flu seriously," Frieden said.

Frieden addressed concerns about an unpublished study reported by Canadian media suggesting that people in Canada who were vaccinated against seasonal flu last spring had double the risk of becoming infected with pandemic H1N1 flu.

Frieden said the CDC has analyzed data from New York and other parts of the United States and data from Australia.

"Nothing we've seen suggest that is likely to be a problem," he said. "If there is preliminary data, we'd like to see it."

P.S., Boost your immune system. Read more about Vitamin C Benefits.

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Objections over swine flu vaccine

2009-09-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

THE OBJECTIONS

Some are suspicious of the new vaccine because the government's swine flu vaccine in 1976 caused some people to contract Guillain-Barré syndrome, a sometimes deadly nervous-system disorder. (They are different vaccines based on two different viruses).

Others see this as an issue of workers' rights, that the government should not be allowed to require vaccinations.

SHUNNING THE VACCINE

Several groups are opposed to vaccination of any kind, often citing philosophical reasons. Here is a look at some of the vaccine objectors.

Some health care workers are opposed to mandatory vaccination, but not to all vaccines.

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders have long objected to vaccinations, based on the widely disputed notion that autism-related conditions are caused by vaccines and vaccine additives.

People with allergies to eggs oppose flu shots because eggs are used in vaccine production.

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Flu Can Raise Chances of Heart Attack

2009-09-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

People suffering from the flu may be at higher risk for having a heart attack, especially those with heart disease and diabetes, British researchers report.

Because both seasonal and the pandemic H1N1 swine flu are circulating this fall and winter, people at risk for heart attacks are urged to get a seasonal flu shot and an H1N1 flu shot, which may reduce the chance of getting the flu and thereby lower the risk for a heart attack, experts say.

"Influenza is most concerning because of its secondary complications," said Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.

"Most of the time with influenza, death or hospitalization isn't because of the influenza, it's because influenza puts you in a weakened state -- it's a stress on the system," he said. "So, it is not surprising that you would have the increased risk of a myocardial infarction during or right after an influenza infection."

In addition, the flu virus may have a negative effect directly on the heart, Siegel said. "Flu stresses and strains the system," he added.

To determine the risk of heart attack among those with flu, a research team led by Andrew C. Hayward, a senior lecturer in infectious disease epidemiology at the UCL Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology in London, looked at 39 studies conducted between 1932 and 2008.

The studies showed an increase in deaths from heart disease and more heart attacks during flu season. In fact, excess deaths because of heart disease averaged 35 percent to 50 percent, according to the report in the October issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

But the studies also showed that getting a flu shot reduced the risk of dying from heart disease or suffering a heart attack, Hayward's group found.

"We believe influenza vaccination should be encouraged wherever indicated, especially in those people with existing cardiovascular disease. Further evidence is needed on the effectiveness of influenza vaccines to reduce the risk of cardiac events in people without established vascular disease," Hayward's team concluded.

Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, agreed that flu shots appear to reduce the risk of heart attacks.

"It has long been hypothesized that influenza infection results in an acute inflammatory response that can also trigger the onset of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke in vulnerable individuals," Fonarow said.

A number of observational studies have suggested more cardiovascular events occur in patients with influenza than otherwise expected and that individuals who receive annual flu shots are much less likely to have fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular events or be hospitalized for heart failure, he said.

"Guidelines from the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology strongly recommend that all individuals with cardiovascular disease receive annual influenza vaccination," Fonarow said.

However, Dr. Pascal James Imperato, dean and distinguished service professor at the School of Public Health at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, said the role of flu shots in preventing heart attack has not been proven conclusively.

"The role of severe respiratory infections in precipitating myocardial infarctions in vulnerable individuals is well-established," Imperato said. "However, the role of influenza vaccines in protecting such individuals is less clear from the limited scientific evidence available."

6 ways to protect your child from swine flu

2009-09-24T02:51:00.000-07:00

As swine flu continues to infect school kids, parental anxieties have stirred up with each one trying to be cautious enough to avoid the spread

protect your child from swine flu (Getty Images)

of HINI virus that has caused severe illness and deaths worldwide.

Dr Galit Holzmann-Pazgal assistant professor of pediatrics at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston suggest parents can ease their anxieties by arming themselves with facts about H1N1 and using some commonsense tips.

* Wash your hands after you touch...and Twitter

Washing your hands is the single-most important step to prevent the spread of H1N1. The virus is spread by droplets from coughs and sneezes as well as touching hands and objects contaminated with these droplets such as each other''s phones, computer keyboards, iPods and video games.

* Know the symptoms

Main symptoms of swine flu are fatigue and fever. Others include body aches, runny or stuffy nose, cough, sore throat and fever, headache, chills, diarrhea and vomiting

* Know when it is an emergency

Call your doctor if your child has symptoms including rapid breathing, not drinking enough, fussiness or if symptoms improve and then return with fever and worsened cough.

* With mild cases, call your doctor first

If your child just feels lousy, and doesn''t have a high fever or trouble breathing, call your pediatrician instead of heading to the hospital.

* Keep the kids home

Keep your sick child at home for at least 24 hours after his fever is gone (without the use of a fever-reducing medicine) except to get medical care or for other necessities, according to the CDC.

Encourage her to cover her mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing, throw away used tissue in the waste basket, and to clean her hands every time she coughs or sneezes.

* Start the vaccinations

Federal officials expect release of the H1N1 vaccine in October. The vaccine may require a second shot given three weeks after the first. It may take another two weeks before the vaccine fully protects the body against the flu. Recent studies showed that one shot may protect against H1N1, stretching the supply of the vaccine.

Until the H1N1 shot is ready, Pazgal advises families to go ahead and get the "regular" flu shot, which protects against the seasonal flu and is already available. That way, your children won''t get the flu twice in one season.

P.S., Know more about benefits of Vitamin C to increase resistance to Flu diseases.

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Swine flu in poor nations a WHO priority

2009-09-24T02:36:00.000-07:00

Top of the agenda for the World Health Organisation's Western Pacific meeting this week will be how to combat the swine flu pandemic in developing nations.

There are growing fears that poorer countries will not get enough vaccines, despite a pledge last week by the United States and eight other nations to make 10 per cent of their swine flu vaccine supply available to others in need.

"The developing world will have no access to vaccines for the time being. There are some donations but it is not enough," said Lo Wing-lok, a member of Hong Kong's government scientific committee on emerging diseases.

"It is very much a matter of equity and the WHO must look at any way to address this."

Developing countries such as the Philippines are not only unable to produce the vaccine for the A(H1N1) flu virus but their people are more vulnerable to infection because of poverty, crowded living conditions and lack of health care.

While the Americas still has the highest death toll from the virus, cases are expected to increase as the northern hemisphere enters winter.

In the Western Pacific there are about a million people living in poor conditions without access to health care, making them particularly vulnerable, WHO regional director Shin Young-soo told reporters on Sunday, a day ahead of the start of the organisation's meetings in Hong Kong.

"Hopefully many countries including China and the United States are soon going to vaccinate their own people but that is not the case for many developing countries and it is something we are worried about," he said.

The WHO and the United Nations are working on raising a billion dollars to help buy vaccines for countries that need help, he added.

Shin said some experts estimate that 20 to 30 per cent of the Western Pacific region will eventually be affected by the virus.

So far Australia has the highest swine flu death toll in the region, with about 171 deaths, according to the WHO.

The organisation warned on Friday that production of vaccines will fall substantially short of the amount needed to protect the global population.

It put the number of deaths worldwide from the virus at 3,486, up 281 from the previous week.

Despite new evidence that only one dose of the vaccines being tested will be enough for most people, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said output next year will be "substantially less" than the 4.9 billion doses annual production forecast.

The United States, Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland have said they will make donations to nations without vaccines.

China is also at the forefront of international efforts to produce a vaccine with at least five companies already receiving government approval, but officials there have also warned demand will exceed supply.

Shin downplayed concerns about the safety of Chinese vaccinations.

China's state news agency Xinhua reported last week that some epidemic disease experts were worried that the vaccines' reliability had yet to be proved because of a faster than usual clinical trial period.

"Licensing procedures are tough and vigorous and we are not compromising on safety or quality in our controls although of course there are some worries about side-effects," Shin said.

He also defended Beijing's record on informing the WHO of developments.

Last week the Chinese health ministry reported a jump in the number of cases to 10,221 from 3,103 in mid-August but no deaths have yet been reported.

"China is a very big country. It is possible that information does not always pass up the line to Beijing but the Chinese government has been very transparent on the issue (of swine flu)," Shin said.

P.S., Boost your immunity against swine Flu. (read here)

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Flu protection with these top ten immune boosting foods

2009-09-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Swine Flu protection starts to take front and center for adults and kids alike. Being sure that the whole family is getting a healthy dose of immune boosting foods can mean the difference between a miserable fall and winter or a happy and healthy one.

Feeding kids healthy foods can feel like an uphill battle sometimes, but it is not impossible. And it is actually really quite doable. It just takes a little ingenuity, creativity and good modeling. Getting the kids involved in the shopping, prepping and planning can go a long way towards their enthusiasm.

Try incorporating these top ten immune boosting foods into the family meals.

Garlic & Onions – They may not be a favorite, but adding these potent foods into meals in small amounts can keep everyone healthy.

Cruciferous Vegetables - including broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, are good sources of betacarotene and help protect against free-radical damage. They also contain vitamin C and calcium. Try offering them with a dip of agave nectar and almond butter.

Green Leafy Veggies - also contain beta carotene, the precursor to vitamin A, vitamin C and calcium. For kids try them in a green smoothie to mask the “green” flavor.

Orange Vegetables - like sweet potatoes, carrots, pumpkin and winter squash are a good source of vitamin A

California Avocados - are rich in vitamin A and potassium and also contain folic acid and magnesium.

Shitake and Maitake Mushrooms - increase the body’s production of white blood cells, which are part of the immune system. Try a small amount in miso soup.

Papaya & Mango - Slice up a papaya or mango for dessert. Add to a green smoothie for yummy tropical sweetness.

Bell Peppers - Red, yellow, and orange peppers have about twice the vitamin C of green peppers.

Jicama - provides as much vitamin C as brocolli. Just peel and cut into “fries” for dipping into guacamole, salsa, nut butter or even natural ketchup.

Kiwi & Orange - the fuzzy little brown fruit with the deep green interior, make a great “fun” food. Pair with orange for a super dose of vitamin C.

For picky eaters, a good tasting green food powder may be just the ticket. Eating an abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits is definitely the ticket to flu protection for the whole family.

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U.S. to Donate 10 Percent of Swine Flu Vaccine to WHO

2009-09-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

The United States plans to donate 10 percent of its supply of pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine to the World Health Organization for use in low-income countries.

The nation has on order 195 million doses of the swine flu vaccine, which is due to start arriving early next month. The White House said it "is taking this action in concert" with eight other countries.

The White House released no details about the program, such as timetables and total amounts of vaccine to be donated. Officials at the Geneva-based WHO did not respond to phone and e-mail inquiries.

The other countries making donations are Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

Earlier this summer, two vaccine manufacturers, Sanofi Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline, said they would donate 150 million doses of pandemic vaccine to WHO. Global production, by about 20 makers in all, is projected to be 2 billion to 4 billion doses over a year.

The number of people who could be protected is uncertain. The first tests of the pandemic vaccine showed that adults will need only one shot, not two as some experts predicted. Children, however, are likely to need two.

"The United States recognizes that just as this challenge transcends borders, so must our response. We invite other nations to join in this urgent global effort," the White House said.

The statement noted as well that "we remain confident that the United States will have sufficient doses of the vaccine to ensure that every American who wants a vaccine is able to receive one."

WHO officials have grappled all summer with how to prevent virtually all the supply of vaccine and antiviral drugs from going to rich countries, leaving poor countries unprotected.

"Improving access to vaccine is the central global issue at this time," Keiji Fukuda, WHO's assistant director general, told epidemiologists and influenza researchers in Washington this week. They were meeting at the Institute of Medicine to discuss events of the first five months of the pandemic.

Negotiations between WHO, the United Nations, vaccine manufacturers and wealthy countries that have standing orders for an essentially limitless supply of pandemic flu vaccine have been "slow and time-consuming," Fukuda said.

Without them "the least developed countries are not really going to have a chance of getting the vaccine." But he acknowledged that "nobody expects the numbers to work out in this pandemic."

Fukuda said that "prolonged ad hoc negotiations" like the ones this summer would be unrealistic in a pandemic more severe than this one.

In 2007, when researchers complained that Indonesia was not making samples of H5N1 "bird flu" available for study, WHO convened intergovernmental negotiations to try to reach an agreement for sharing both virus samples and the benefits that might result from them, such as vaccines. The negotiations ended this year without a full agreement.

P.S. boost your immune system thru Vitamin C nutrition.

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Swine flu's tendency to strike the young is causing confusion

2009-09-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

As health officials brace for a new onslaught of illness from the novel H1N1 virus, they remain perplexed by one of the most unusual and unsettling patterns to emerge from this pandemic -- the tendency of the so-called swine flu to strike younger, healthier people.

The initial explanation was that the elderly, who are usually most vulnerable to the flu, have built-in immunity as a result of their exposure more than 50 years ago to ancestors of today's pandemic strain. But the limits of the theory are becoming more clear. For starters, only a third actually have antibodies to the new H1N1.

"It doesn't quite look as though it's the whole story," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

Further, the flu's two key genes came directly from pigs and are new to everyone. That means all age groups should be equally vulnerable since no one has encountered the genes before. Yet infants seem to be in less danger than older children and most adults.

Unraveling these mysteries will be crucial to designing a strong defense against this tenacious virus. Tests in animals strongly suggest that H1N1 will be with us for the foreseeable future, supplanting the strains that cause seasonal flu within a year or two.

Understanding the virus' inner workings will also help scientists prepare for future influenza pandemics.

H1N1's unorthodox nature became apparent as soon as the virus burst onto the scene in early spring: Most of the earliest cases in the U.S. and Mexico occurred in children rather than the elderly.

In the U.S., half of the people with confirmed H1N1 cases have been 12 or younger, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until July 24, when the CDC stopped counting new cases, 60% of patients whose ages were known were between 5 and 24 years old. An additional 20% were in the 25-to-49 age group. Only 1% of those sickened had reached the age of 65.

Younger people also appear to be getting the most severe cases of pandemic flu. The median age of patients requiring hospitalization is 20, according to the CDC. In fatal cases, the median age is 37.

Those figures are in stark contrast to the seasonal flu, which is most likely to sicken people who are elderly, very young or chronically ill. More than 90% of fatal cases involve senior citizens.

H1N1's link to 1918

Scientists had theorized that the new H1N1 swine flu descended from the 1918 Spanish flu, an H1N1 strain that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. Older people who had been exposed to that virus must have built up immunity that protected them against the new pandemic strain.

But an analysis published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine found H1N1 antibodies in blood samples from only 39 of 115 people born before 1950, a rate of 34%. The results supported a similar analysis released in May.

Over the summer, researchers who tested blood samples from Japan found that few people born after 1918 had antibodies that protected them against the new H1N1. But most of the people over the age of 90 did.

That suggests immunity came only from the initial versions of Spanish flu, not from the myriad offshoots to which most elderly people were exposed. For them, protection came from something else.

"Other components of the immune response no doubt also contribute to reduce disease," said Jacqueline Katz, chief of immunology and pathogenesis in the CDC's Influenza Division. But she said that scientists didn't know what those might be.

Then there's the matter of the key H and N genes in the new H1N1 virus. Although they have much in common with the corresponding genes from the 1918 strains, both came directly from pigs. No one should have immunity.

Baffled by fatalities

It may turn out that prior experience with H1N1 has very little effect on who will wind up with the most severe cases of swine flu.

Consider this alternative explanation for the unusually young age of H1N1 victims from Dr. Peter Wenger, a professor of preventive medicine and community health at New Jersey Medical School in Newark: Perhaps their more vigorous immune systems are simply mounting stronger challenges to the flu virus.

If bodies overreact and release too many infection-fighting proteins called cytokines, the resulting "cytokine storm" can cause severe inflammation that overwhelms the lungs and respiratory tract. In extreme cases, the reaction can be fatal.

Many scientists have speculated that this kind of calamitous immune response may have been at work in 1918. But the theory is difficult to test.

"The immune system is such a finely modulated system," he said. "When you start pulling out cells and putting them in test tubes, it gives you some idea, but is it really what happened?"

Though the overall H1N1 fatality rate remained low over the summer during the Southern Hemisphere's flu season, deaths continued to be concentrated among middle-aged adults.

For example, in New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, half of the 48 deaths were in people in their 40s and 50s, according to figures from the government's health department.

Though children and young adults have higher rates of H1N1 infection, the fatal cases are more likely to involve middle-aged adults because they have higher rates of the underlying medical conditions that make H1N1 deadly, such as asthma, diabetes and heart disease, said CDC spokeswoman Artealia Gilliard.

Dr. Harry Greenberg, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine, said he was puzzled about why H1N1 had caused relatively few deaths in infants and young children considering that they lack the antibodies that appear to be protecting the elderly.

"I don't have a good explanation to totally account for this," he said, "except to say it's early in the data-gathering business."

P.S. boost your immune system by eating vitamin C fruits and foods now.

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Is swine flu really a big deal?

2009-09-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

With news of swine flu, or H1N1, outbreaks sweeping the nation and a case of the disease on campus, College of William and Mary students may be wondering how to fight off the flu as well as asking themselves if the vaccine is really worth it. Let’s look at the facts:

Cumulative reported cases in universities in proximity to William and Mary, according to WDBJ 7 news:

University of Maryland: 435
University of Virginia: 119
Virginia Tech: 85 with flu-like symptoms, 17 confirmed cases
University of Richmond: 68
Virginia Commonwealth University: 4
University of Mary Washington: 1
Roanoke College: 4
Washington and Lee University: 9
Liberty University: up to 150
James Madison University: none
Virginia Military Institute: none

William and Mary’s reported cases: 1 (There were three cases this summer with summer camp counselors and a camper.)

Symptoms of H1N1: Just like any other flu, those with H1N1 may experience a fever, sore throat, cough, congestion, headache, fatigue, night/day chills, body aches, vomiting, and/or diarrhea.

Pros and cons of the flu shot: The flu shot has been offered in the past at the Health Center. This year, health officials claim it is more important than ever to receive the flu vaccine and the swine flu vaccine.

Children, and especially college students, are more susceptible to the flu than those over 24 years old. It seems logical then to get the flu shot, right? Wrong.

In 1976 during the last swine flu outbreak, hundreds of people who received the swine flu vaccine suffered from Guillain-Barre (or Toxic Vaccine) syndrome.

This year’s swine flu vaccine only began testing in late July and early August. It may be too early to tell what sort of side effects will plague those who receive the vaccine — so it seems a bit irresponsible of the government and pharmaceutical companies to publicize and administer this vaccine. However, flu vaccines have been known to save thousands of lives, which is significant because over 36,000 Americans die each year from the flu.

Some immune systems are unable to handle the vaccine. When stressed or anxious, students shouldn’t get the flu vaccine. High stress levels lead to a suppressed immune system, which makes it harder for the body to create the natural antigens for the flu. As a result, those who are more susceptible to the virus may suffer flu side-effects. This may also increase the chances of others contracting the flu.

Flu vaccines do prevent up to 75 percent of flu cases for those that have received the vaccine. Pharmaceutical companies do their best to quickly develop a flu vaccine during an outbreak. Yet this also leads to competition, faulty testing, false publicizing, and endangering the population.

The pharmaceutical company Baxter has created one of the nationwide swine flu vaccines. It also has some history of scandals in administering faulty pharmaceuticals.

The vaccine itself is quite a controversial chemical compound. Within the flu vaccine there are traces of squalene (often acknowledged as a precursor to various auto-immune diseases), formaldehyde (Yuck. Dead people), egg protein (bad for those allergic to eggs), potassium phosphate (usually used in fungicides and fertilizers), and thimerosal (a form of mercury).

What’s worse is that babies and infants are the target population health care pushes to receive the vaccine — and the dosage of the vaccine given to children is the same given to adults.

Since the FDA has approved the vaccine, perhaps we have nothing to worry about; we should just let this flu rave run its course. But the FDA has been wrong before, and so has our government and health care system.

Everyone should look out for themselves and make their own decisions, regardless of the hype on the television — just because everyone runs to the doctors for a vaccine doesn’t mean it’s safe.

We all know the common ways to fend off the flu: washing your hands, covering your mouth when you cough, using hand sanitizer, getting plenty of sleep.

Foods you should have when fighting the flu, or to prevent the flu: garlic, hot and spicy foods that clear nasal passages, ginger tea to suppress coughs, citrus foods, and vitamin C.

An easy way to get vitamin C without peeling a hundred oranges is to purchase 1000 mg of Vitamin C packets, available at local food stores.

If you have the flu, you don’t have to be “rec’d.” You should avoid anything that is an immunosuppressive, such as heavy milk products (they create excess mucous in the body), hamburgers, pizza, fried foods, and salt (which constricts blood vessels). But you should eat lean proteins like chicken noodle soup.

Yogurts are great for boosting the immune system, and so are flavenoids (found in grapefruits, oranges, lemons, and limes). Foods with glutathione, such as kale, spinach, watermelon, cabbage, and broccoli also support and protect the immune system.

And when nauseous, peppermint tea always helps to calm an upset stomach.

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Swine flu vaccine expected to arrive in October

2009-09-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

More than a million doses of swine flu vaccine a week are expected to start rolling in next month, state health officials said Thursday, but the first batches probably won't be enough to vaccinate everyone considered most at risk.

Texas will receive 1.1 million doses of the vaccine a week for three weeks and 1.5 million a week after that, said James Zoretic, regional medical director for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

A department spokesman said the first shipments could arrive as soon as early October – though no date is yet certain.

The numbers were released at a regional pandemic influenza conference in Arlington, attended by state and local health officials.

Also on Thursday, U.S. and Australian researchers announced findings that one shot of the vaccine, rather than two, should adequately protect adults from the disease.

The H1N1 vaccine, which is different from the one for seasonal flu, will be distributed to hospitals and clinics with guidelines to inoculate priority population groups – pregnant women, people 6 months to 24 years old, and those ages 64 or younger who have certain medical conditions, among others.

Several counties, including Dallas and Tarrant, have stopped counting cases of swine flu. Instead, health officials monitor emergency room reports of fevers, coughs and sore throats to gauge the disease's spread.

So far, such reports are up about 5 percent over the same period last year – a "slight uptick," said John Carlo, medical director for Dallas County Health and Human Services.

He said officials will be carefully watching that number to see if it increases over the flu season.

Officials are also monitoring school absentee rates for signs of classroom outbreaks. So far, those numbers are "fluctuating" quite a bit, said Carlo.

He cautioned that erratic absentee rates are not unusual for the beginning of the school year.

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Fight H1N1 with a healthy diet

2009-09-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

With kids back in school, flu season is top of mind for many parents. Resurgent H1N1 virus, seasonal influenza and the common cold are expected to bring sneezing, coughing, aches and chills.

While you can't prevent these viruses from making their fall appearance, a healthy diet can bolster your immune system making it better prepared to respond. The right nutrients and certain supplements may also help ease cold and flu symptoms.

Flu season starts in October and lasts until April and colds typically occur between September and May. It's no coincidence we get sick more often during the fall and winter. Cooler temperatures keep us indoors where we're more likely to come into prolonged contact with others who are infected.

Vitamin D is thought to play a role in seasonal flu. The nutrient increases the body's production of proteins that destroy viruses, including influenza. Given that vitamin D is synthesized in our skin on exposure to sunlight, low blood levels of the vitamin in the winter months may make us more susceptible to getting the flu. Canadian researchers are currently investigating vitamin D for swine flu protection.

Your first defence against colds and flu is good personal hygiene. Frequent and thorough hand washing, covering your mouth when coughing or sneezing, and cleaning surfaces that you touch with germ-killing disinfectant will help protect you, your family and your co-workers from infection-causing germs.

Adequate sleep also helps guard against infection. Sleep deprivation disrupts immune function and increases levels of proteins in the body associated with inflammation. Aim for seven to eight hours of sleep each night; children and teenagers need nine to 10 hours.

A healthy immune system also needs regular exercise. Studies show that physically active people get fewer colds each year than do their sedentary peers. But don't overdo it. Intense workouts or prolonged endurance exercise steps up the production of stress hormones, which can hinder the body's ability to fight infection. Aim to get 30 to 60 minutes of light to moderate activity most days of the week.

When it comes to nutrition, a healthy diet that includes protein and plenty of fruit and vegetables will help build a strong immune system. While no single food or supplement is guaranteed to keep winter viruses away, studies suggest the following strategies may help.

Vitamin C

Although this nutrient promotes the body's production of immune compounds, there's little evidence that taking vitamin C can prevent colds and flu in average folks. However, in individuals under physical stress (such as marathon runners), supplementing with vitamin C cuts the risk of developing a cold in half.

Vitamin C does seem to lessen cold symptoms in adults and kids. A review of 30 studies involving 11,350 participants concluded that vitamin C reduced the duration of colds.

To reduce cold symptoms, 2,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day, taken in divided doses, appears to be most effective. Children, people under physical stress and those with low dietary intakes of vitamin C tend to respond best to this vitamin.

High doses of vitamin C may increase the risk of oxalate kidney stones. People with a history of kidney stones should restrict their intake to 100 milligrams a day.

Vitamin D

The advice for Canadian adults to take a vitamin D supplement in fall and winter to help reduce cancer risk may also protect from the flu by enhancing the body's immune system.

Take 1,000 IU (international units) of vitamin D each day throughout the fall and winter. Older adults, people with dark skin, those who don't go outdoors often and those who wear clothing that covers most of their skin should take the supplement year-round.

Children should supplement with 400 IU a day.

Zinc

This mineral is vital to a healthy immune system. Foods rich in zinc include oysters, seafood, red meat, poultry, yogurt, wheat bran, wheat germ, whole grains and enriched breakfast cereals. Your diet and a multivitamin and mineral supplement will provide all the zinc you need to stay healthy.

Zinc lozenges can reduce the duration of cold symptoms. Compared to cold sufferers taking placebo pills, those taking zinc gluconate or zinc acetate lozenges experienced faster recovery from coughing, sore throat, runny nose and headache.

Echinacea

This herb enhances the body's production of white blood cells that fight infection. The most recent review of 16 randomized trials concluded that the majority of studies report a positive effect, most notably when supplements of Echinacea purpurea (Eastern purple coneflower or Purple coneflower) were used.

Echinacea should be taken until symptoms are relieved and then continued two to three times daily for one week.

Ginseng

A special extract of North American ginseng, sold as COLD-fX (Afexa Life Sciences Inc.), can help treat colds and flu. A 2008 study of 323 healthy adults who had suffered at least two colds the previous year, found that compared to those taking a placebo, people who took COLD-fX were 26 per cent less likely to get a cold. Among those who did get colds, half were less likely to catch a second one.

The recommended does is 200 milligrams, twice daily, during cold and flu season. While COLD-fX shows promise for healthy adults, it has not been tested in children or the elderly.

Probiotics

These “friendly” strains of bacteria added to yogurt and sold as supplements are thought to stimulate the immune system. In adults, taking a daily supplement containing lactobacilli and bifidobacteria has been shown to reduce the severity and duration of colds and flu.

Probiotics may also be useful in preventing colds and flu in children. A study published last month in Pediatrics found that healthy children, aged 3 to 5, who took probiotics during the fall and winter suffered significantly less fever, coughs, antibiotic use and missed school days.

To supplement, buy a product that contains 1 billion to 10 billion live cells per dose (capsule). Choose a probiotic supplement that contains both lactobacilli and bifidobacteria strains. Children's products are available on the market; these usually contain one-quarter to one-half of the adult dose.

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A(H1N1) deaths in RP now at 28, says report

2009-09-07T10:20:00.000-07:00

MANILA, Philippines—The number of fatalities in the Philippines due to the Influenza A(H1N1) virus has reached 28 as of Sept. 3, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said Sunday, citing a report from the Stockholm, Sweden-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).

In a statement, TUCP secretary general Ernesto Herrera said the ECDC’s daily update on the A(H1N1) pandemic as of Sept. 3 stated that “20 new fatal cases have been reported in the Philippines since the country last accounted for only eight deaths on July 29.”

The ECDC’s daily updates offer statistics of A(H1N1) confirmed cases and deaths in countries and territories belonging to the European Union and/or covered by the European Free Trade Agreement. The number of deaths for selected countries, including the Philippines and seven other Southeast Asian countries, was included in the report.

There were no figures for cases in non-European countries and territories.

Herrera pointed out that the statistics on the non-European countries were based by the ECDC on “official information provided by national public health websites, or through other official communication channels.”

The daily updates may be viewed at the ECDC website (http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/healthtopics/Pages/Pandemic_%28H1N1%29_2009_Daily_Update.aspx). The Inquirer checked the latest posted daily report, dated Sept. 5, which still placed the number of fatalities in the Philippines at 28.

Figure could be higher

The former senator expressed concern that the actual number of A(H1N1) deaths in the country could possibly be higher than reported. He noted that Thailand and Malaysia, which both have superior surveillance of the disease, have already reported dozens of deaths.

The ECDC’s latest daily update listed a total of 262 confirmed A(H1N1) deaths in Southeast Asia, broken down as follows: Thailand, 130; Malaysia, 73; the Philippines, 28; Singapore, 17; Indonesia, 10; Vietnam, two; and Brunei and Laos, one each.

Globally, the ECDC said A(H1N1) had already claimed a total of 3,315 lives, according to the ECDC report.

The TUCP has been urging corporations to adopt “workplace continuity plans” to assure workers “the least possible interruption to their jobs and income” as the virus spreads more aggressively.

Weekly disclosure

Herrera also earlier urged the Department of Health (DoH) to resume its weekly disclosure of confirmed A(H1N1) cases “to keep the public in an elevated state of readiness” in dealing with the potentially faster spread of the virus. He cited the need to put “everyone in a constant high state of alertness, particularly in avoidance.”

The DoH recently ceased testing and reporting individual cases of A(H1N1), after the World Health Organization (WHO) stopped compelling countries to do so.

On Sunday, Herrera urged the DoH to consider routinely divulging to the public “at least the number of A(H1N1) cases admitted to hospitals and intensive care units, just like what health authorities are doing in other countries.”

Malacañang on Friday ordered the DoH to establish extra laboratories in public hospitals “to effectively manage” A(H1N1) cases. It also instructed the DoH to heighten the monitoring of the A(H1N1) virus and improve coordination with the WHO for real time exchange of information on the disease.

The WHO has warned governments around the world of an imminent surge in A(H1N1) cases. It said countries could see cases double every three to four days for several months, and “it is certain there will be more deaths.”

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Palace to DOH: Monitor A (H1N1) second wave

2009-09-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

MANILA - President Arroyo on Friday ordered the Department of Health to step up its monitoring of the spread of Influenza A (H1N1) cases in the country amid fears that a second wave of the virus could affect nine million Filipinos.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the President has instructed the DOH to improve its coordination with the World Health Organization as to real-time exchange of information and data on the A (H1N1) virus.

"The President also ordered hastening of the capacitation of the laboratories of government hospitals for more testing in case of epidemics. She also provisioned that government hospitals to be better prepared to manage complicated cases that may be exacerbated by the virus," Remonde told reporters.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III earlier said a second wave of A (H1N1) infections in the Philippines could affect one-tenth of the population or about nine million Filipinos, but stressed there are no indications that the virus would worsen.

“So if our population is about 90 million, a second wave of A(H1N1) could affect as many as nine million Filipinos,” Duque told the Philippine Star during a cluster meeting of mayors from Mindanao under the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP).

But Duque said he recently got assurance from a WHO official that there were no indications that the A(H1N1) virus has mutated into a more virulent strain.

Duque noted that dengue fever and even ordinary flu were more fatal than A(H1N1) in the Philippines.

DOH records show 28 people infected with A(H1N1) have died in the country as of August 28. Nearly 5,000 have been infected though more than 96 percent of the cases have fully recovered.

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DOH: Second wave of H1N1 more virulent

2009-09-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

MANILA - The Department of Health on Friday warned that a more virulent strain of the Influenza A (H1N1) virus could hit the country even as experts search for a vaccine to defeat the virus.

Dr. Eric Tayag, chief of the DOH Epidemiology Center, said A(H1N1) virulence's could be seen in how fast it spread globaly. The disease, which was first detected in Mexico, is the first pandemic of the 21st century and in 41 years.

"There will be a second wave of cases. These will come from Europe and the United States. Since it's flu season, we have to take steps to ensure that it doesn't spread [in the country]," Tayag told ABS-CBN.

The DOH official said a vaccine is still in the testing stage and could be released in January.

He said the DOH continues to make the rounds of hospital nationwide to ensure their preparedness for a possible second wave of A(H1N1) infections.

DOH records show 28 people infected with A(H1N1) have died in the country. Nearly 5,000 have been infected though more than 96 percent of the cases have fully recovered.

Globally, a total of 2,185 people have died from A(H1N1), with some tropical countries reporting "moderate strains" on their healthcare systems amid surges in infections.

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Pinay with lung problem dies of H1N1 in Bahrain

2009-09-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

A runaway Filipina overseas worker with a pre-existing health condition was the first person reported to have died from A(H1N1) virus in Bahrain.

According to the report written by Mandeep Singh and Patrick Solomon and published online by the Gulf Daily News (GDN), OFW Jane Tamad Diale, 30, passed away in Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) Sunday.

The report said an extremely ill Diale was rushed to the hospital last Wednesday by an unidentified friend.

Diale’s father, Abdul Maguid Diale, reportedly requested her cousin Fatima to look for her when she came home during her vacation. Diale was traced at the SMC.

Fatima, too, was tested positive for H1N1 and is being treated and quarantined at home.

"I got the virus from the hospital but my condition was immediately detected. The doctors have told me to remain in isolation for a few days,” Fatima said in the report.

GDN was able to interview Mr. Diale who recently received photographs of his daughter who seemed to be in good health despite suffering from a lung condition.

"She had been suffering from a lung condition for several years, so when we heard she was in hospital, we thought her condition had aggravated," Mr. Diale said.

"In her latest photographs, she looked so beautiful, without a worry in the world. It was a beautiful smiling face, she looked so beautiful," her father added in the GDN report.

The last conversation he had with his daughter was around 10 days ago. He added that the family was aware that she ran away from her sponsor several months ago.

It was in 1999 when Diale went to work in Saudi Arabia for three years. Her condition started when she was working there. After that she moved to Dubai and then to Bahrain where her condition reportedly worsened.

GDN quoted SMC Infection Control head Dr. Jameela Salman as saying that people with H1N1 should not delay treatment as the virus could be fatal.

Dr. Salman said Diale could have been saved if she was treated earlier.

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WHO - Swine Flu Deaths surge to 2,837

2009-09-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says at least 625 people have been reported dead from swine flu in the last week.

The swine flu virus has caused at least 2,837 deaths since it emerged in Mexico and the United States earlier this year and developed into a full-blown global epidemic. Most of the deaths are in the Western Hemisphere.

WHO said Friday that laboratory-confirmed cases of the disease have now reached 254,206.

Spokesman Gregory Hartl says the figure far understates the actual number of cases because countries are no longer required to report each infection as the caseload is so high.

He says the number of deaths is growing proportionately to the increase in number of infected people.

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Single swine flu vaccine dose may be enough

2009-09-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

Novartis AG trumpeted the effectiveness of a single dose of its swine flu vaccine, boosting hopes that potentially tight supplies could go further when mass immunization programs start this month.

The outbreak of the H1N1 strain of flu, declared a pandemic on June 11, has spread around the world and could eventually affect 2 billion people, according to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

Many experts expected that two doses per person would be needed by health authorities preparing for a possible second wave of infections at the start of winter in the northern hemisphere.

Vaccination is expected to get under way in some countries this month with many others starting in October.

Novartis said on Thursday that its Celtura H1N1 vaccine had a strong immune response after just one dose in a pilot trial, and Chinese health authorities gave a green light to Sinovac, which says its vaccine also needs only one shot to be effective.

"This is good news as one dose of Celtura may be sufficient to protect adults against the swine flu. This potentially boosts that availability of flu vaccines for the upcoming flu season when a large outbreak of swing flu is expected," said Karl-Heinz Koch, an analyst at Swiss brokerage Helvea.

Another key variable is vaccine yield in the manufacturing process. Yields were initially low but the WHO said last month they were improving and one strain seemed to be yielding the same amount as seasonal vaccine.

Cell-based vaccines like Novartis's are quicker and easier to manufacture than traditional flu vaccines, which are grown in chicken eggs. However, supplies are limited for now -- they currently make up about 30 percent of the Swiss group's capacity.

Novartis said a pilot trial of Celtura run by Britain's Leicester University with 100 volunteers showed a potentially protective immune response in 80 percent of the subjects after one dose and more than 90 percent after two doses. Other studies with more than 6,000 adults and children are continuing.

Sinovac, the first company to complete clinical trials, received approval from Chinese health authorities to mass produce a vaccine for the new strain of H1N1 and raised its annual sales forecast.

Sinovac shares rose some 16 percent to $9.90 by 1351 GMT, while Novartis slipped 0.8 percent to 48.62 Swiss francs, in line with the DJ Stoxx European healthcare sector.

WINDFALLS

Other pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit are also racing to develop H1N1 vaccine as governments scramble to secure supplies.

Australia's CSL is already producing H1N1 vaccine and is making 1.0 million to 1.5 million doses per week until it fills all orders.

Antiviral drugs which treat flu rather than immunize -- Glaxo's Relenza and Tamiflu, made by Switzerland's Roche -- are also in high demand.

Sales to governments will provide a revenue and profit windfall for many drugmakers this year and in 2010.

"At the beginning of this year, we forecast our sales would rise by 20 percent," Sinovac Chief Executive Yin Weidong said on Thursday. "Looking at things now, H1N1 has given us an opportunity, so the rise should be more than 20 percent."

H1N1 vaccines would be given separately from regular seasonal flu shots.

Vaccines arrived too late in the 1957 and 1968 flu pandemics to be of much use, and flu vaccines had not been developed in the 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic which killed an estimated 50 million people.

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Protect yourself against the swine flu with good nutrition

2009-09-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

The swine flu is all over the news right now and leaving people in a panic wondering what can be done to protect against getting the illness. Good nutrition is a great place to start. Adding just a few foods to your diet can dramatically decrease your risk of getting the swine flu by building up your immune system.

Right now our population is overfed and undernourished. Meaning that people are filling up on nutritionally deficient foods, leaving their bodies malnourished and immune depressed. When your immune system isn’t supported with good nutrition your body can’t fight off bacteria and viruses as well putting you at a much greater risk of getting sick.

Foods to boost your immune system:

1) Protein: our bodies are made up of protein and in the every day wear and tear we need to keep up adequate protein intake to help our bodies re-build tissues and cells. Good sources of protein include lean meats, eggs, beans, and healthy soy products like tempeh.

2) Vitamin C: everyone knows that Vitamin C is essential to a good immune system; this is why it is frequently taken by people at the first sign of a cold. The problem is that people don’t get enough day to day and it is not stored in the body so when your stores are depleted your immune system crashes. Make sure to get Vitamin C in the foods you eat every day to keep your immune system running strong all the time. Good sources of Vitamin C include citrus fruits, bell peppers, berries, broccoli, tomatoes, and even potatoes.

3) Garlic: garlic is antimicrobial, antiviral, and antiparasitic. It is a wonderful immune enhancer. If you don’t like the taste of garlic, or don’t like smelling like garlic then take it in supplement form. Many supplements out there don’t have a taste or smell. Kyloic aged garlic extract is a great supplement.

4) Probiotics: probiotics keep our gastrointestinal (GI) system working properly. Sixty percent of our immune system lies within our GI tract, thus a healthy GI means healthy immunity. The overuse of antibiotics kills off our natural healthy gut flora and lowers our immunity, ironically. Supplementing with probiotics builds this healthy flora back up. Probiotics can be found in yogurt, fermented foods like sauerkraut and pickles, and in supplemental form.

Including these foods in your daily diet will enhance your immunity and protect you from colds and flu. The swine flu is a very real problem in our society right now and it is important to protect ourselves in the best way possible. Good nutrition is always a win-win situation for our health and the health of our families.

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Swine flu’s re-emergence: Questions and answers

2009-08-31T01:03:00.000-07:00

Swine flu is expected to re-emerge potent and pervasive this fall, infecting as much as half the U.S. population, hospitalizing 2 million people and killing up to 90,000, according to federal officials.

Like pandemic strains of the past, H1N1 has a predilection for infecting young people. And because schools and colleges have long served as veritable cauldrons of flu activity, the combination of a new strain and the opportunity for its spread pose new concerns.

Yet neither state nor federal health officials are recommending surgical masks be added to backpacks when kids return to school. Instead, experts are urging a swine flu vaccination when it’s ready, a seasonal flu vaccination now, and developing a family pandemic plan.

Public health experts say preparedness is the best weapon against an infection that has already hit more than 1 million people in the United States, hospitalized 7,983 and killed 522. Yet given influenza’s extraordinary unpredictability, flu scientists can’t say for sure what the upcoming season will be like.

Is it certain H1N1 will recur in the fall?

Yes. Worldwide surveillance shows H1N1 as the predominant strain circling the globe. Low levels of flu activity are being reported nationwide and all of it is H1N1. Usually at this time of year, there is virtually no flu present, so even low-level activity is uncommon. With so much H1N1 in circulation globally, computer modeling suggests the potential for a strong resurgence.

Will H1N1 become more virulent?

No one can say with certainty. Influenza — especially pandemic flu — is highly unpredictable. Based on what physicians have seen to date, the majority of cases have been mild illnesses of only a few days’ duration.

What are the symptoms?

Identical to seasonal flu: high fever, muscle aches, dry cough and general malaise. Anyone with the flu is urged to stay home during the illness. State and federal health guidelines recommend not returning to school until 24 hours after fever has subsided without the aid of fever-reducing medication.

How does H1N1 differ from seasonal flu?

The virus has a novel gene arrangement that is new to human populations worldwide. It also behaves differently from seasonal flu, which has its greatest impact on the elderly. H1N1 disproportionately affects young people, particularly pregnant women, newborns and people up to 24 years old.

Why are people of school and college age so vulnerable?

It is a new virus that has never been encountered by the human immune system, which means no natural defense. Pandemic strains historically have a greater impact on young, robust people. Opportunity also plays a role. Flu strains tend to proliferate in schools and colleges because people are in close contact. Poor hygiene — coughing, sneezing into a hand — then touching objects that others handle helps spread the virus.

How can parents help children guard against swine flu?

Stress the importance of hygiene. Frequent hand washing and/or use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers are helpful. Public health experts recommend packing a container of hand sanitizer, which can be used when students can’t be excused to use soap and water.

Will schools close when one or two cases are confirmed?

No. New federal guidelines stress the importance of keeping schools open. Long Island school district officials say their aim is to keep schools running as usual. Less H1N1 data was available during the spring when several school closures were ordered. Scientists have since learned H1N1’s infectiousness is comparable to seasonal flu and that the vast majority of people who contract it recover quickly.

Should medically fragile children avoid school entirely this year?

Children who are ventilator-dependent, or who have muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy or other medical conditions, are being encouraged to attend school. Schools for these children as well as those for pregnant teens face different school-closure recommendations. Unlike mainstream schools, state and federal guidelines recommend closure of schools for medically fragile children when even a single case emerges.

Will there be a vaccine?

Yes. A vaccine is in clinical trials at several centers around the country and is expected by mid-October. Flu scientists are testing the vaccine in pediatric populations.

Will there be enough vaccine for everybody?

No. Health authorities originally had hoped for 120 million doses, but the five manufacturers supplying the United States estimate about 45 million will be available by October. However, manufacturers will continue producing H1N1 vaccines throughout the fall and winter.

Why is the vaccine in short supply?

Flu vaccine production is a long, laborious process. Generally, it requires about nine months to produce seasonal flu vaccines. The H1N1 vaccine is new and requires clinical safety and efficacy testing, which takes time. However, because scientists were able to quickly identify the virus, which is needed as “seed stock” to make the doses, it is helping manufacturers fast-track production even as clinical testing is under way.

Are children and young adults first in line for vaccination?

Yes. Priority groups include: pregnant women; household contacts of infants younger than 6 months old; children and young adults 6 months to 24 years; health care and emergency service workers; and people 25-64 with medical problems, such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc. Government health officials estimate those groups total 159 million people.

How safe is the vaccine?

Data emerging from clinical trials suggest the vaccine is both safe and effective.

How many doses are required?

The H1N1 flu vaccine is a two-dose immunization taken three weeks apart. Full immunity occurs about two weeks after the second dose. For most people receiving the vaccine, immunity probably won’t be achieved until Thanksgiving or later.

Will the vaccine contain the preservative thimerosal?

Some H1N1 vaccines will contain thimerosal, a chemical preservative activists have linked to autism. However, there is no scientific basis for that claim. Manufacturers are also producing thimerosal-free doses. If you have concerns, ask your child’s physician for a thimerosal-free vaccine.

Once you are exposed to swine flu or already sick, are antiviral drugs effective?

Yes. They can shorten the course of influenza. But they have to be judiciously prescribed. Currently, there are no dramatic signs of drug resistance. But public health agencies urge caution because only two medications are available to treat swine flu: Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir). Tamiflu when taken within 48 hours of flu exposure can prevent infection. Misuse of either medication can lead to resistance, making the drugs useless.

Who should take an antiviral?

The World Health Organization says otherwise healthy people with mild to moderate cases of swine flu do not need an antiviral. But anyone who is young, old, pregnant or has an underlying health problem can benefit.

If you had swine flu during the outbreak last spring, should you get the new vaccine?

No. If you had a confirmed diagnosis of H1N1, that infection should provide immunity.

What about if the case was not confirmed?

If you fall into one of the targeted groups, but the case wasn’t confirmed, you should consult a physician.

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Swine Flu - What You Need to Know

2009-08-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

"Information is the best prevention".

This pandemic is still a very serious threat to the people. Medical companies are racing against time to combat this dreaded disease which already claimed thousands.

As the government scrambles to provide vaccine for Swine Flu and contain the spread of the disease, perhaps the best tool available for you is the right information.

What is Swine Flu and how is it different from varieties of influenza we've seen before?

H1N1, or "Swine Flu" contains genetic material from swine, avian and human flu viruses. H1N1 viruses often circulate harmlessly, but since it's a new type of virus, humans don't normally have immunity to it. There are predictions worldwide about the spread of Swine Flu, but nobody is sure how far the disease will spread.

What are the symptoms?

These include:

* Fever
* Cough
* Sore throat
* Runny nose
* Body aches
* Chills
* Fatigue

Some cases also involve diarrhea and vomiting.

These symptoms are relatively common in most types of influenza. Your doctor can give you a Swine Flu test, though the results are not always definitive.

A fever is defined as having a body temperature of 100 degrees or greater.

Swine flu can also cause neurological problems in children, as do other types of flu. The disease is fatal in rare cases.

Who's at the highest risk?

Most U.S. cases have involved young adults and older children. A large number have involved those with morbid obesity.

Experts still caution that those at the highest risk from Swine Flu are young children, the elderly, those with immune disorders and other chronic illnesses.

How can I tell of co-workers, family members or others have Swine Flu?

It's virtually impossible to tell, as Swine Flu symptoms are similar to those of other types of flu. Still, experts advise you to stay six feet from those who appear sick. It's not necessary to wear a face mask, but it can help prevent you from spreading your flu virus to others.

How can I avoid infection

The CDC says hand washing is one of the best ways to reduce your risk of infection. Also, staying away from those who exhibit symptoms is also effective. A personal distance of six feet is recommended.

All household surfaces should be kept clean. Experts say the flu virus (H1N1 included) can stay alive on doorknobs, books, counters, sinks and desks for up to 8 hours.

What vaccines are available?

Vaccines are being prepared in large numbers. Millions of doses will be available in October with more being distributed each month thereafter. The CDC says children ages 6 months to 19 should get a flu shot each year.

What medications are effective?

Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir) are thought to be the most effective medications to combat H1N1. Doctors advise taking these drugs as soon as possible after symptoms are exhibited. The CDC adds that those who have been to areas with widespread infection should talk to their doctors about taking one of these antiviral medicines.

Health officials don't advise stockpiling Tamiflu and Relenza, though there have been reports in recent years about public health workers doing just that. Still, the government recommends leaving available medicines for those truly in need.

How do I prepare my family for a possible major outbreak?

The government web site Flu.gov advises that you keep a two week supply of food and water in the house. You should also make sure you have a large supply of any prescription drugs on hand. Make sure your children know to always wash their hands and stay away from others who are sick. Parents should cover coughs and sneezes with tissues and model that behavior for the children.

Talk with family members and loved ones about how they would be cared for if they got sick, or what will be needed to care for them in your home. Parents should make plans for child care in the event they themselves become sick.

What if a family member becomes sick?

Call your doctor. If you, your spouse or the kids are coughing and sneezing it could just be a cold. But if there's a fever, headache and other flu symptoms, that's an indication that it could be Swine Flu or some other strain of season influenza.

Also, anyone who's sick should stay home and avoid public areas.

What about travel? Is it safe?

Experts advise caution when traveling to Mexico since there have been large numbers of people infected with Swine Flu there. But you should check with your airline, and websites for the CDC and WHO before traveling since new advisories are constantly posted.

Why have so many people died from Swine Flu in Mexico but not in the U.S.?

Nobody is excactly sure, but it's possible that Americans generally get better, faster medical care. But some experts worry that the number of U.S. deaths could increase as the disease spreads.

Should we avoid pork?

That's not necessary. Swine Flu or H1N1 virus is spread between individuals or by touching surfaces contaminated with the virus. Pork has nothing to do with it.

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WHO Warns Of Severe Form Of Swine Flu

2009-08-29T06:47:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Doctors are reporting a severe form of swine flu that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment, the World Health Organisation said Friday.

Some countries are reporting that as many as 15 percent of patients hospitalized with the new H1N1 pandemic virus need intensive care, further straining already overburdened healthcare systems, WHO said in an update on the pandemic.

"During the winter season in the southern hemisphere, several countries have viewed the need for intensive care as the greatest burden on health services," it said.

"Preparedness measures need to anticipate this increased demand on intensive care units, which could be overwhelmed by a sudden surge in the number of severe cases."

Earlier, WHO reported that H1N1 had reached epidemic levels in Japan, signalling an early start to what may be a long influenza season this year, and that it was also worsening in tropical regions.

"Perhaps most significantly, clinicians from around the world are reporting a very severe form of disease, also in young and otherwise healthy people, which is rarely seen during seasonal influenza infections," WHO said.

"In these patients, the virus directly infects the lung, causing severe respiratory failure. Saving these lives depends on highly specialized and demanding care in intensive care units, usually with long and costly stays."

MINORITIES AT RISK

Minority groups and indigenous populations may also have a higher risk of being severely ill with H1N1.

"In some studies, the risk in these groups is four to five times higher than in the general population," WHO said.

"Although the reasons are not fully understood, possible explanations include lower standards of living and poor overall health status, including a high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension."

WHO said it was advising countries in the Northern Hemisphere to prepare for a second wave of pandemic spread. "Countries with tropical climates, where the pandemic virus arrived later than elsewhere, also need to prepare for an increasing number of cases," it said.

Every year, seasonal flu infects between 5 percent and 20 percent of a given population and kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people globally. Because hardly anyone has immunity to the new H1N1 virus, experts believe it will infect far more people than usual, as much as a third of the population.

It also disproportionately affects younger people, unlike seasonal flu which mainly burdens the elderly, and thus may cause more severe illness and deaths among young adults and children than seasonal flu does.

"Data continue to show that certain medical conditions increase the risk of severe and fatal illness. These include respiratory disease, notably asthma, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and immunosuppression," WHO said.

"When anticipating the impact of the pandemic as more people become infected, health officials need to be aware that many of these predisposing conditions have become much more widespread in recent decades, thus increasing the pool of vulnerable people."

WHO estimates that more than 230 million people globally have asthma, and more than 220 million have diabetes. Obesity may also worsen the risk of severe infection, WHO said.

The good news -- people infected with AIDS virus do not seem to be at special risk from H1N1, WHO said.

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Vaccinate kids, parents to manage flu spread: study

2009-08-21T11:08:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — Targeting vaccines to school-age children and their parents could help manage potential outbreaks of swine and seasonal flu and avert worrisome vaccine shortages, researchers suggested on Thursday.

The study in the August 21 issue of the journal Science comes as the Northern Hemisphere braces for the start of its influenza season in the coming months, while deaths from swine flu mount in countries where it is winter.

The approach runs counter to typical recommendations to battle seasonal flu, which urge the vaccination of children under five as well as all people over the age of 50, noted study co-author Jan Medlock, a mathematician at Clemson University in South Carolina.

But "vaccines would be better used to prevent transmission within schools and out to parents, who then spread the flu to the rest of the population," Medlock said.

His research used a mathematical model to demonstrate cases of flu spreading in which limited vaccine doses were given to school-aged children and adults age 30-39 -- parents in contact with the students.

Looking at the influenza pandemics of 1918 and 1957, researchers determined that even with just 63 million doses of vaccine, they could be given first to children 5-19, the group in which the greatest amount of spreading takes place, and adults 30-39, most often infected by their children.

Following the traditional protocols, the United States uses more than 80 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine every year to combat influenza, which kills about 36,000 Americans annually.

But faced with the swine flu, or (A)H1N1 global pandemic, which has already killed 1,799 people worldwide according to the World Health Organization, experts have raised concerns about the availability of enough vaccine to administer to at-risk groups.

In July, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said children and pregnant women should be among the first to receive a swine flu vaccine, and warned that the total at-risk population would number around 160 million.

Those targets also include caretakers and others in contact with children under six months old, healthcare workers, youths between the ages of six months and 24 years, and adults with underlying medical conditions.

Officials at that time forecast a shortage of vaccines, with only 120 million doses likely to be available by October.

But in August, US health officials issued a more dire warning that only 45 million swine flu doses would be ready by mid-October, with 20 million doses delivered each week thereafter.

The WHO has forecast possible shortages in the production of (A)H1N1 vaccines this year due to the slow growth of the swine-origin (A)H1N1 in chicken eggs.

Unlike seasonal flu, which usually hits elderly people the hardest, the (A)H1N1 virus has mostly infected the young. It emerged in Mexico in April and has since spread to 170 countries.

Deaths from swine flu in Latin America -- the worst-hit region in the world -- rose to more than 1,300 this week after governments added to tolls from the disease.

South America has seen the (A)H1N1 flu spread widely during its southern hemisphere winter. In several countries, it has overtaken ordinary seasonal flu.

And with vaccines against swine flu still more than a month away from being available -- and wealthy countries snapping up all available pre-orders from the big drug companies -- Latin American nations are looking at ignoring patents to produce their own.

Worldwide, there have been 177,457 confirmed cases of swine flu, according to the World Health Organization.

More than two million people have probably been infected by the swine flu virus in the United States, including 7,511 who have been hospitalized and 477 who have died, according to the most recent figures of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NBI seizes P4M worth of fake flu vaccines

2009-08-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

The scare over A(H1N1) had prompted some traders to cash in by selling vaccines that they claim to cure the disease. In mid-July, the National Bureau of Investigation arrested a businesswoman in Laguna province for selling what she claimed to be A(H1N1) vaccines.

Amid the scramble for immunity against the dreaded A(H1N1) virus, government agents seized some P4 million worth of fake flu vaccines in a sting operation targeting a businesswoman in Laguna province last week.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has said its agents nabbed the suspect Jennifer Cristobal, 28, in her home at 19 Lily St., Sampaguita Village in San Pedro City in Laguna.

Radio dzBB reported Wednesday that Cristobal sold the vaccines at P3,000 per vial, about P1,000 cheaper than the genuine product.

NBI Anti-Fraud and Computer Crimes Division agents seized several cardboard boxes of fake flu vaccines, which turned out to contain water, during the raid on Cristobal's house.

A press statement on the NBI Web site said Cristobal's arrest stemmed from a complaint lodged by Sanofi Pasteur, maker of the Vaxigrip (inactivated influenza vaccine).

Investigation showed Cristobal's KNJ Marketing was selling fake products and passing them off as products of Sanofi Pasteur.

After a test-buy of Cristobal's vaccines proved positive, the NBI obtained a search warrant from San Pedro Regional Trial Court Branch 31.

Last Friday, the NBI arrested Cristobal and raided her house, where they found 180 vials of Vaxigrip vaccines, 10 boxes of syringes, official and delivery receipts, certificate of product registration, labels, marketing paraphernalia, computers, a telefax machine, and printers.

Cristobal is being detained at the NBI jail and is facing charges of sale of counterfeit drugs.

source

A(H1N1) vaccine to be made available to Filipinos in October

2009-08-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

The vaccine against the A(H1N1) virus will finally be made available to Filipinos in October, the local distributor has said.

An information officer of distributor Vaxcen told GMANews.TV on Monday that they have yet to receive a go ahead from their head office to release the name of the pharmaceutical company that would produce the vaccine.

What is sure is that the vaccine will be made available through the company’s vaccine centers starting October, said the Vaxcen officer who refused to be named, citing company policy.

“We assure you it’s from a reputable company," said the officer.

National Epidemiology Center head Dr. Eric Tayag said in a separate interview that they have already received reports regarding such announcements from Vaxcen.

“We’re looking into it, we still have to check and verify these orders. The problem is that we still have no guidelines or policies regarding the distribution of the vaccines," said Tayag.

A previous announcement made by the Department of Health said that health care workers would be the first recipients of some 100,000 A(H1N1) vaccines ordered by the Philippine government from the World Health Organization (WHO). [See: DOH: Health workers to get first batch of A(H1N1) vaccines]

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III also said that the WHO will “draw up" a formula of how to allocate the vaccines to each country.

But Vaxcen said that it is now accepting reservations for the vaccine for P750. The worth of the vaccine is P1,500. It added that interested buyers may call their centers in Quezon City at 421-2493 or in Pasay City at 556-0414.

Tayag said it is possible that the vaccine manufacturers are taking orders through Vaxcen.

“Kung matutuloy yan, chances are hiwalay sila sa guidelines (If their vaccine distribution goes through, then they must be exempted from the guidelines," he said.

As of early July, more than 2,688 cases of A(H1N1) had been recorded in the country with a 95 percent rate of recovery. Since July 9, the DOH has stopped daily updates on the cases of A(H1N1) in the country and instead focused its resources on mitigating the spread of the disease.

In its July 27 update, WHO recorded 134,503 confirmed cases worldwide with 816 deaths. Of these figures, 87,965 or 65 percent of the infections and 707 deaths (86 percent) were recorded in the Americas.

source

Swine Flu: Why You Should Still Be Worried

2009-08-06T00:29:00.000-07:00

Swine flu is spreading faster than ever — so much so that the World Health Organization has decided to stop tracking cases. All over the world almost everyday, we hear of swine flu cases and deaths. Medical companies are racing against time to come up with a vaccine to prevent the spread and cure existing swine flu illnesses.

Read full story.

P.S. Boost your immune system. check this out.

RP’s swine flu death toll rises to 6

2009-07-31T03:11:00.000-07:00

Philippine health officials say three more people have died of A(H1N1)- or swine flu-related illnesses, bring the country's death toll to six.
(Read More.....)

P.S. it's about time to boost our immune system. (click here)

WHO: global death toll from swine flu now over 700

2009-07-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

The worldwide death toll from swine flu has doubled in the past month, reaching over 700 since the start of the outbreak last spring, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.

Here in the Philippines, swine Flu related deaths is at 3 while 2,668 cases being recorded but five percent still being treated. Read More.

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superoyee

Swine flu pandemic now 'unstoppable' -- WHO official

2009-07-19T01:13:00.000-07:00

This is a very serious threat. this pandemic is on a global scale. no one is immune to it. read more....

P.S. check out my blog for some helpful tips in prevention of this threat.

43-year-old teacher is 4th A(H1N1)-related death in RP

2009-07-18T09:10:00.000-07:00

The dreaded Swine Flu A(H1N1)has claimed another life here in the Philippines. We must be aware and vigilant on this disease. follow the tips recommended by the D.O.H. .....READ MORE!!!

P.S. pls visit my blog and know tips in prevention of the disease.

superoyee

Swine flu will be biggest pandemic ever, warns world health chief

2009-07-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

As swine flu sweeps the planet, Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organisation, tells how she is leading the battle against it – and the personal price she is paying although she would no doubt point out that swine flu should properly be called H1N1, there is something pleasing in the fact that the first thing Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation, does when I enter her office is pick up a cut-out of a pig that has fallen on its face and carefully place it upright. A pink and gilt confection, it's left over from celebrating the Chinese year of the pig in 2007: it was so cute, she says, that she couldn't bear to throw it out.

A year earlier, Chan had been a surprise candidate in a surprise election (the previous incumbent died halfway through his term), but she won with a clear majority to become the first Chinese national to run a major UN agency. A rule change in 2005 (the WHO no longer has to beg states for information about threats to global health, but can just demand it) also makes her the most powerful public health official in history.

Tiny in her orange jacket and neat little orange-brown Miu Miu mules, she wears that authority not lightly, exactly, but naturally: in an organisation famed for its bureaucratic circumlocutions, she is refreshingly direct. It's a strength she's aware of – "I have a reputation for being a straight-talker, I will tell them the story like it is" – but that makes it no less striking, or true. (Also striking, for those who have witnessed it, is her penchant for bursting into song: she once punctured a tense moment at a summit about bird flu by singing a few lines of Getting To Know You, from The King and I.)

Months later, on 11 June 2009, she found herself the first WHO chief in 41 years to stand before the world and announce that a new virus had reached pandemic proportions. Right up until the last minute, scientists were calling her up and warning her to be careful about raising the threat alert so high — but the strict definition of "pandemic" is a new disease spreading uncontrollably through numerous countries, and on that count her decision has been completely borne out. On 11 June, swine flu had been registered in 74 countries; when we meet in Geneva four weeks later, it has just been confirmed in 140 countries.

Born in another year of the pig, 62 years ago, Chan began her career as a liberal arts graduate and a high school teacher of home economics, Chinese and English, but when her boyfriend moved to Canada to study medicine, she followed him. Finding that she still saw him very little, she applied to study medicine herself, in the same class. When they graduated they returned to Hong Kong, and in 1994 she was appointed as director of health there, with a staff of 7,000. Three years later, she faced a major outbreak of bird flu.

Chan learned then that clarity of communication is of utmost importance, and that over-reassurance can be as bad as no reassurance at all. She has in mind the (infamous in Hong Kong) moment when she was trying to tell people that it was still safe to eat chicken. "They asked me, 'Do you eat chicken?' and I said, 'Yes, I do. I eat chicken every day.'" It's the last sentence she regrets, because it is so patently undermining. No one would go on that kind of diet, right?

Her critics were not to know that it was, in fact, true: Chan did eat chicken every day, just as she has had a tuna sandwich every single lunchtime (barring official functions) for the five years she has lived in Geneva. Her job is so big, so unpredictable, that she says these fixed points are crucially important "to maintain my sanity". So now it's a tuna sandwich every day, and a session on a treadmill every morning.

But in Hong Kong the damage was done, and she eventually ordered a cull of all 1.5m chickens in the country. By the time the Sars epidemic came round in 2003, she was experienced and tough enough to have earned the nickname "Iron Lady"; although 299 people died in Hong Kong, and she was criticised in some quarters for being slow off the mark (she replied that she had found it hard to get accurate information from mainland China), most experts applauded her efficiency. She was headhunted to improve the WHO's response to infectious disease threats because, as the then director-general told her, "You are the only person who has managed crises. I have many armchair experts. I need generals."

Chan's war has arrived with a vengeance. A 2007 WHO report, A Safer Future, estimated that a flu pandemic could affect more than 1.5 bn people, or 25% of the world's population. Could swine flu be that big? "Quite likely. Quite likely. But it probably won't happen in one run. It will probably come back [in two or three waves]."

How does she expect it to compare to other pandemics? "In terms of the number of countries affected and the number of people infected, this has got to be the biggest."

Bigger than 1918? "If you're talking about mortality then it's different. 1918 is the biggest in terms of mortality. I would not like to make any predictions . . . I hope we don't see the 1918 picture. But we should expect to see more people infected, and more severe cases coming up, including deaths."

Swine flu is probably already much bigger than anyone knows. Ten days ago, only six countries in Africa had reported cases, but as Chan readily admits, this is rather misleading: until the WHO started sending out lab kits in early May, many developing countries had no means of testing for it. Furthermore, modelling suggests that swine flu has an attack rate of 30% — once it enters a country, the likelihood is 30% of citizens will catch it at some point.

In wealthy countries such as Britain, she observes, "The disease is self-limiting. Some even recover without medicine. But is it going to be the same in a country where they have a high proportion of people suffering from HIV? Or chronic malnutrition? Or diabetes? [all of which damage immune systems]?"

Pregnant women are among the groups most severely affected; already, every minute of every day, a woman dies in childbirth or pregnancy. Furthermore, unlike seasonal flu, H1N1 tends to affect previously healthy 30-50 year-olds; developing countries have large, young populations often living in crowded conditions.

As well as having no testing facilities, these countries will often have almost no access to antivirals such as Tamiflu. "Is it fair," demands Chan, rhetorically, "for these countries to go into a pandemic empty-handed?" So she has gone, cap in hand, to the companies that produce them: Roche has just provided 5.6m free doses of antivirals, which Chan has dispatched to the developing world; she is angling for another 5-6m, and hopes they will soon come through.

"Vaccines are much more difficult," she says with some understatement, "because of the limitations in production capacity." Companies in Europe and North America, and a few small ones in Asia, are racing to make a vaccine to combat this new disease. "One should be available soon, in August. But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that is proven safe. Clinical trial data will not be available for another two to three months."

The process of acquiring a vaccine is already a salutary lesson in health inequality. "Most of the production capacity has already been booked up by wealthy countries. Again I have to ask the question: do the developing countries have to wait at the end of the queue? Because if that's the case, they won't have a vaccine for six months."

So Chan is trying to persuade manufacturers to free up a percentage of their production capacity for developing countries – 10% is her modest request. "The most important thing is to have a supply of vaccine to protect, first and foremost, a functioning health system. It is always important to keep taking care of pregnant women, cancer patients, diabetics and so forth. And I'm also mindful that a certain amount of vaccine should be provided to countries so they can maintain a stable society — that they must vaccinate law enforcement officers, and fire brigades, for example. Making sure that society can function in a normal way."

There is, of course, the caveat that swine flu has been "mild so far". Many countries may opt not to vaccinate at all, or not to make it compulsory. But it is also the case that an estimated 250,000-500,000 people die every year from seasonal flu (not including those who die of respiratory failure or heart disease which hasn't been traced back to an initial flu virus), and that the situation with swine flu could change at any moment. British scientists admitted this week that they were taken by surprise by swine flu's sudden spread; Chan is aware that while it could work itself out with comparatively minimal damage, she could also suddenly find herself dealing with a far more virulent, more deadly mutation.

And that, of course, would be on top of the myriad other epidemics and crises currently demanding her attention; the massive health impacts of climate change, for example, which she is in no doubt "will be the defining issue of the 21st century".

Declining food security will, she predicts, mean massive rises in people dying from malnutrition and diarrhoea, and probably more wars. More floods will mean more water contamination and issues with water security, and more deaths due to injuries and drowning. More waterlogged areas and changes in temperature will mean sharp rises in vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

"The prediction is that, within the next 10-20 years, food production in Africa will drop by 50%. If that's the case, how many more people will go hungry? Remember that malnourished, stunted children cannot reach their education potential, which will have a massive social and economic impact."

Chan worries, too, about massive rises in non-communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes, smoking-related illnesses) outside their traditional stamping grounds of the well-fed west. The trouble, from her point of view, is that these diseases attract nothing like the funds that, say, malaria or polio or HIV/AIDS do: "60-80% of the disease burden in developing countries is now due to so-called lifestyle diseases" – and yet, until the last two years when the Bloomberg and Gates foundations got in on the act, non-communicable diseases received no donor funds at all.

Then, of course, there are the ongoing battles — malaria (at least seven African regions have reduced deaths by half), polio, measles, HIV and TB, where another crisis of global proportions threatens: "The challenge is drug-resistant TB. And this is really huge. If it gets out of control," Chan warns, "it will take us back to the pre-antibiotic era."

And so her days begin at 7am, on her treadmill, and end hunched over her files late at night. Her husband opted not to come with her to Geneva (there would be nothing for him to do, and she travels frequently), so she lives alone in a flat five minutes' walk away from WHO headquarters. She does not drive, and speaks so little French that when she first came she couldn't even find a tin-opener in the shops.For 30 years her husband did all the cooking, so she had forgotten how – after a year and a half she fell ill with anaemia. Living apart from him for the first time in 50 years is taking its toll.

"I'm sorry!" she says, flapping her hands helplessly and wiping tears away. "When I talk about my husband . . . you know, he is so interesting, he is such a lovely man. I once said, 'David, can I have a contract?' He said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'Can I marry you again in the next life?' It's not easy. But it is the kind of sacrifice I think you have to make in the interests of global health."

And it is a fixed term; she will be done in another two-and-a-half years. In the meantime, there are aeroplanes. The day after we met, Chan flew to Sharm-el-Sheikh to address the spouses of world leaders on maternal death rates; it was a brief stop on her way home to Hong Kong for a couple of weeks' annual holiday. Although "with a pandemic," Chan says wryly, "you can't really be on leave" •

By: Aida Edemariam
The Guardian
July 16, 2009

Benefits of Vitamin C

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Posted By: superoyee

DOH: 2 more flu patients die

2009-07-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday reported two more deaths from Influenza A(H1N1), bringing to three the total number of Filipinos who have died from the virus.

Dr. Yolanda Oliveros, director of the DOH’s National Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said the fatalities were a 74-year-old man and a 19-year-old man who had asthma. The two patients died last week.

Oliveros told The STAR that the older man had underlying illnesses like chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, emphyzema, hypertension, cardio-vascular disease and tuberculosis.

“He was multiple high-risk... That is why in our mitigation strategy, we primarily focus on the severe cases and those with underlying conditions,” she added.

The country’s first death from A(H1N1) was a 49-year-old mother who was working at the House of Representatives.

Based on autopsy, the old man died from “congestive heart failure secondary to acute myocardial infraction aggravated by severe pneumonia either bacterial, viral or both.”

It turned out that the septuagenarian also had tuberculosis, enlarged liver, kidney and spleen, tumor in the uterus and tyromegaly or goiter.

Records of DOH’s Hotline for H1N1 showed that as of last week, there were 2,668 confirmed cases but 2,543 of these have already recovered.

On the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO), the DOH had shifted its anti-A (H1N1) program from containment to mitigation after establishing that the virus is “mild in nature.”

And while the virus is easily spread through air droplets or respiratory discharges, most infected patients have recovered even before they started taking medication.

But Oliveros warned that while A(H1N1) is mild, the public should not let their guard down.

She reiterated the DOH’s call for the strict observance of personal hygiene, particularly the covering of mouth when sneezing and coughing and constant washing of the hands, as the virus can survive on wet or moist surfaces for up to six hours.

Under the mitigation strategy, the DOH had done away with contact tracing and the mandatory 10-day quarantine.

Interim guidelines of the DOH showed that anti-viral treatment with Oseltamivir is “only for confirmed cases with severe progressive illness or concurrent medical condition that compromise their immune system.”

“Those with stable clinical manifestations or those identified when they were in the recovery state of the illnesses... are for home care,” the guidelines stated.

Laboratory diagnosis or throat swab sampling is done as part of the investigation of first suspected cases in a specific area or community and of a person with influenza-like illnesses (ILI) who are at risk of developing complications because of existing medical conditions.

The guidelines showed that swab testing could also be done randomly in clusters “with ILI manifesting with unusual symptoms or severity.”

OFW from Tarlac

Meanwhile, the Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong yesterday reported that a 37-year-old female Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) from Tarlac is currently confined at the United Christian Hospital in Kwun Tong, Kowloon, in what Hong Kong health authorities described as a “serious case of human swine influenza.”

The Consulate urged Filipinos working in or intending to travel to Hong Kong to exercise the highest vigilance against the A(H1N1) flu.

The Consulate said in a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) that the Filipina, who arrived in Hong Kong on June 28, was reported to have flu-like symptoms on June 29 and was admitted to the hospital on July 7, initially diagnosed with “severe pneumonia”.

On July 11, the Consulate was informed by the attending doctor that a “molecular” test had confirmed her to be an A(H1N1) case.

The Health Emergency Management Staff (HEMS) of the Department of Health (DOH), which runs the DOH 24-hour A(H1N1) hotline, was immediately contacted by the Consulate to brief them about the case and provide appropriate medical bulletin to the patient’s family and other close contacts in the Philippines.

The Consulate continues to be in constant touch with the patient’s family members and friends in Hong Kong and advised those who came in contact with the OFW to consult a doctor as a precautionary measure.

The Consulate has also talked to the patient’s husband in the Philippines and assured him of the government’s support.

He was also informed that he and other family members and relatives in the Philippines should immediately consult a doctor to check if they were infected.
With Pia Lee-Brago

By Sheila Crisostomo

Boost your Immune System

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By superoyee

D.O.H. Update 54

2009-07-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

Update 54 - WHO Commends DOH for Anti-A(H1N1) Efforts, Adopts Weekly Reporting System of Cases as Recommended by WHO

9 July 2009

The Department of Health (DOH) today expressed gratitude to the World Health Organization (WHO) over the commendation it gave to the government agency for its swift and tireless efforts in dealing with the novel virus A (H1N1).

The WHO letter dated June 30, 2009 and signed by WHO Regional Director Dr. Shin Young-soo put on record “my personal appreciation of the exceptional collaboration established between the Government of the Philippines and the World Health Organization in the fight against Pandemic H1N1 2009. I commend your leadership and tireless efforts in responding to this emerging threat to the health of the people of the Philippines”.

“We are very grateful that our efforts were recognized and didn’t go to waste. We appreciate that the WHO finds our response efficient and that it is confident on the quality of our laboratory diagnoses,” Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III said.

The WHO letter further said that “Contact tracing has also been thorough, allowing the DOH to detect further cases and slow down the spread of the virus. The efficiency of the response indicated to me that the Philippines has the fundamental capacity to detect and respond to the new influenza virus. I should add that WHO is also confident about the quality of the laboratory diagnoses carried out by the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine and about the epidemiological activities conducted by the National Epidemiology Center (NEC)”.

Meanwhile, Duque also said that the Philippines, as a member country of the WHO, will now be adopting the WHO recommended changes in the reporting of A (H1N1) cases.

According to the WHO, for countries already experiencing community-wide transmission, the focus of A (H1N1) surveillance activities must shift to reporting against the established indicators for the monitoring of seasonal influenza activity. Those countries are no longer required to submit regular reports of individual laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths to the WHO.

“The WHO will no longer be issuing global table updates that show the number of confirmed cases for all countries but will instead continue to document the global spread with updates describing the situation in newly affected countries,” Duque said.

The WHO said that as the pandemic evolves, the data needed for risk assessment are also changing and that at this point, its further spread is considered inevitable. It said that the increasing numbers of cases in many countries with sustained community transmission is making it extremely difficult to confirm them through laboratory testing.

Because the DOH is set to abide by the newly recommended reporting system of WHO for A (H1N1), it is now reviewing and adjusting its surveillance systems to fit the monitoring of the novel virus in its regular surveillance of Influenza-like illnesses (ILI) in the country.

Duque stressed that globally and locally, the novel virus has caused mild illness in the majority of affected patients with expected full recovery even without medical treatment. However, there are some cases that become serious especially if the patients have underlying pre-medical conditions. Like the other seasonal flu strains, A (H1N1) can cause severe viral pneumonias and other flu complications” Duque said.

“So, again, we are urging the public to be more vigilant in guarding their health against A (H1N1) despite its generally mild clinical manifestations in most of the cases reported in the country,” Duque stressed.

The Secretary said that such highly vulnerable conditions include uncontrolled diabetes, frank cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic liver and kidney disease. He added that those who are organ transplant recipients, immunocompromised, and suffering from other infections like HIV/AIDs and TB; pregnant women and the very young and the elderly are more at risk of developing serious cases of A (H1N1).
“We are stressing this point because of the first previously reported case of death in the country involving a patient with an incidental finding of A (H1N1). We now have to be more aggressive in targeting segments of patients with a high vulnerability to fatal flu complications,” Duque pointed out.

“We want to make it clear that high-risk groups, once they have the flu symptoms, should immediately go to their doctor. They should not wait for their symptoms to worsen because they are prone to many other infections such as our seasonal flu strains,” Duque clarified.

“We also advise parents and guardians to seek immediate professional help if they see danger signs in children and other family members which indicate rapid progression of the disease or a worsening of symptoms. Likewise healthcare providers should stick to the basic protocol of managing acute respiratory infections among children by being vigilant of these danger signs which include rapid breathing, excessive drowsiness, poor intake or dehydration. In adults, chest pain, prolonged fever or labored breathing should prompt warnings to see a doctor,” Duque reminded the public.
Meanwhile, Duque advised the public to continue following the recommendations of the DOH on proper handwashing, cough etiquette, and other hygiene practices.

“The best defense against A (H1N1) and other diseases is to boost your immune system. Most people can fight off this virus without special medications or hospitalization. You can stay at home and take supportive care like plenty of fluids, vitamins and bed rest,” Duque stressed.

In this connection, Duque strongly advised the public to be vigilant over advertisements or fraudulent sales promotion practices of food supplements, vitamins or other products that create an erroneous impression that the product concerned could cure or treat the A (H1N1) virus.

“It must be stressed that to date, there are no food supplements, vitamins or vaccines that cure or treat the novel virus,” Duque stressed.

“We are warning manufacturers and distributors of these products that any claim in their advertisements that it can cure or treat A (H1N1) can be an outright violation of Section 112 of the Republic Act No. 7394 (The Consumer Act of the Philippines), Bureau Circular 2007-002 (The Guidelines in the Use of Nutrition and Health Claims in Food), and Republic Act No. 3720 (Violating the Misbranding Provisions),” Duque said.

“We are encouraging the public to report to the Bureau of Food and Drugs (at 809-4390 local 1051) any advertisement or fraudulent sales promotion practices involving the above-mentioned products that create an erroneous impression that it could prevent, cure or treat the novel virus,” Duque concluded.

Department of Health

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Tips for preventing A(H1N1) infection and treating flu patients

2009-07-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

By
GMANEWS.tv
Published: June 22, 2009Posted in: Top Stories
Tips for preventing A(H1N1) infection and treating flu patients

June 22, 2009 | 02:10 PM

TO PREVENT INFECTION

DO…

* Wash your hands with soap and water
* Use alcohol-based hand sanitizers
* Avoid crowded places
* Eat nutritious food and drink plenty of water
* Sleep eight hours a day
* Avoid contact with sick people

DON’T…

* Shake hands or hug people
* Spit in public
* Take medicine without consulting a physician

IF YOU GET SICK, DO …

* Cover your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing
* Stay at home and limit contact with others as much as possible during the time that you are most likely to spread the virus (usually one day before developing symptoms up to seven days after you get sick)
* Get plenty of sleep and rest
* Take plenty of liquids
* Seek medical advice
* Keep yourself in a room which is separate from the common areas of the house
* Cover your nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing, and wear a loose-fitting surgical mask if you need to leave the house
* Wear a surgical mask if you need to get close to other persons
* Use a separate bathroom, if possible; it should be cleaned daily with household disinfectant

Sources:

Philippine Department of Health

World Health Organization

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Compiled by ANNIE RUTH C. SABANGAN,
GMANews.TV

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DOH launches A(H1N1) hot line

2009-07-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

GMANews.TV - Wednesday, June 24

MANILA, Philippines — Got any questions about A(H1N1)?

Try calling Hotline 155, a help line set up by the Department of Health (DOH) in partnership with Smart Communications, Inc.

Launched on Tuesday, the hot line will be manned by call center agents trained by the DOH to accommodate A(H1N1)- or swine flu-related queries.

The service, however, is available only to Smart, Talk and Text, and Red Mobile subscribers, which means queries can only be made using a cellular phone.

Smart public affairs head Ramon Isberto also clarified that the services are not free and normal rates apply “to screen out prank calls." Isberto said it would consider the suggestion of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III about giving discounted call and text rates for the DOH hot line.

In addition to Hotline 155, Smart subscribers can also reach the DOH via “Text 700-DOH." To use the service type: DOH (space) FEEDBACK (space) question and send to 700364.

Isberto said Hotline 155 is available from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, while Text 700DOH functions 24 hours.

He clarified that it is the DOH that would reply to queries via text messaging.

Secretary Duque, meanwhile, reported that the number of A(H1N1) cases in the Philippines has jumped to 473 after 28 more people tested positive for the new strain.

In a press conference, Duque said the new cases included 16 males and 12 females, with ages ranging from seven months to 49 years old.

The good news is that 400 of those infected have recovered, or an 85 percent recovery rate. No additional Influenza A(H1N1)-related death have been recorded in the Philippines, he added.

Mark Merueňas and Aie Balagtas See, GMANews.TV

Swine Flu updates

2009-07-04T23:35:00.000-07:00

Update 53 - Duque Orders DOH to Bolster Mitigation Efforts Against A (H1N1)

01 July 2009

H1N1 UPDATE NO. 53Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III today reported that the Department of Health (DOH) is further bolstering its mitigation efforts against Influenza A(H1N1) in light of the anticipated rise of cases in the country.

On June 30, Duque convened another DOH Command Conference attended by members of the A (H1N1) Task Force, the DOH regional health directors, the chiefs of hospitals of all the 72 DOH-retained hospitals in the country, and some representatives from the private sector.

“As we anticipate more cases in the coming months, we must institute effective mitigation measures to save lives and prevent deaths and to reduce the impact of the pandemic to our nation and the economy,” Duque said.

With the shift toward the mitigation strategy, the DOH is ensuring that all government hospitals, both at the national and local government levels have the capacity to administer care to high-risk patients where the severe manifestations of the A (H1N1) virus are frequently seen. This is in accordance with the directives of President Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo last week to prepare well-equipped isolation wards in all state-run hospitals throughout the country.

High risk patients include patients with preexisting medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, immunosuppression, HIV/AIDs, TB, pregnant women and the very young and the elderly.

Duque also called for a meeting with the member agencies of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) to engage them, particularly the DILG, in strengthening the involvement of local government units in the A (H1N1) response. This is to make sure that local governments have surveillance, monitoring and response systems in place and that hospitals and primary health care facilities under their jurisdiction are able to identify, treat and manage A (H1N1) cases.

“We have also requested the NDCC member agencies, especially DepEd, CHED and TESDA and PIA to help us in our nationwide campaign against A (H1N1). This is to make sure that our information and education activities reach all schools, barangays and provinces in the country,” Duque added.

Come next week, DOH is also set to meet with the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) and hospital groups like the Philippine Hospital Association (PHA) and the Philippine Hospital Infection Control Society (PHICS) to engage all hospitals and healthcare providers in the appropriate treatment and management of A (H1N1) patients according to the set interim guidelines of the DOH.

Meanwhile, Duque announced that 1,709 confirmed A (H1N1) cases have been reported to the DOH from the 1st week of May up to June 27, 2009. Eighty-six percent (86%) or 1,485 of these cases have already recovered, while the remaining 224 (14%) are still under treatment at present, most of them under home management.

“All cases exhibited mild symptoms with the most common as fever (86%), cough (81%), and nasal congestion (49%),” Duque said, noting however, that there was one reported death.

“The ages of cases range from 5 months to 79 years old, with 18 years old as median age. Most of them belonged to the 10-19 years age group (831 or 49%). Majority of the cases were male (894 or 52%),” Duque described.

Duque disclosed that of the 1,709 reported cases, 1,568 (92%) were Filipinos; the rest were American (with 17), Japanese (8), Chine (4), Korean (3), German (2), and one each from Australia, Canada, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Sweden, Thailand, and Turkey.

“Two hundred and eighty-five cases (17%) had history of travel to a country which has reported A (H1N1) cases. Most came from the USA, China, Japan and Singapore,” Duque noted.

Duque said that as far as the geographic profile of the 1,709 cases is concerned the National Capital Region has the most number of patients: comprising 72% (1,225). Cases from NCR mostly came from Quezon City, Manila, Parañaque, Pasig and Makati.

The three other regions that reported the most number of cases were: Regions IV-A, III and VIII.

As far as the global report is concerned, the World Health Organization, as of June 29, has recorded 70,893 cases with 311 deaths from 109 reporting countries.

Department of Health

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