>Breaking news<

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2009/08/01/218630/FLU-OUTBREAKS.htm

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- In tandem with reports of the first recorded death related to the A(H1N1) swine influenza, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday noted the upsurge of massive outbreaks in communities.

As of noon yesterday, there were 10 cases of group infections involving a total of 452 people, said the CDC.

Health officials said that the transmission of the virus was mainly seen at breeding grounds such as schools, troops, summer camps and factories.

Lin Ting, the deputy director general of the CDC under the Department of Health (DOH), was cited as saying that the current picture likely signals a more widespread epidemic come flu season later this year after schools re-commence.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday chimed in and said that schools and city and county governments will get final say as to whether or not to suspend classes over the summer.

Any local school with a confirmed case should be closed for seven days to contain the possible spread of the disease, said CNA reports. If the situation is very severe, the ministry said, the school's closing can be extended to 10 days.

But officials have yet to hammer out a contingency plan by which a nationwide suspension of classes would be made possible this fall, said the MOE.

The A(H1N1) virus is blamed for most of the infections seen recently, but other seasonal flu strains such as the A(H3N2) has also been identified in collected specimens, according to health authorities.

comment: pack theory

With the spike in number of collective outbreaks and flu-like cases diagnosed, the Cabinet-level health department has stepped up epidemic control efforts.

DOH Minister Yeh Ching-chuan and CDC director general Guo Hsu-song personally traveled to the CDC outpost in Taichung to monitor the office's epidemic-fighting operations.

The duo also visited medical facilities in central and eastern Taiwan to ensure medical facilities have the manpower and capability to cope with the worst-case scenario.

A group of CDC staff members also canceled their long-planned islandwide tour this weekend amid increasing reports of swine flu infections, according to CNA reports.

Meanwhile Chen Jian-ren, an academician with the Academia Sinica and the former head of the DOH, relayed his worries about the current rapid proliferation of the A(H1N1) virus and suggested that at the present rate the disease may become widespread and be circulating in all parts of the general population by late September or early October.

He also advised that residents avoid congregating in indoor areas with poor ventilation over the summer and to seek medical attention as soon as symptoms develop.

Meanwhile, medical experts also reiterated that the A(H1N1) flu is difficult to differentiate from other seasonal strains and encompasses a wide range of symptoms, mild to severe.

But patients have been reporting prolonged fatigue as well as diarrhea in addition to common flu symptoms such as fever and cough, said doctors.

Medclinician

This link is being disputed and I am recovering my buffer text I pulled yesterday with the search engine. The previous post should be enough to carry and document the massive outbreak of Swine Flu in China despite whatever question there was as the second article.

Med

Suzi1 wrote: Sounds suspiciously anti-pork to me. If you know what I mean. Don't they know about the sneeze.

It sounds like they are very concerned about it being spread by pork. They always have been. Even when Western news was downplaying the presence of virus in pig blood, WHO was recommending not eating Swine Flu infected pork.

What you need to look at is the 20% fatality rate. Start doing some numbers and calculate the implications of this. Not a single plan in the world is capable of dealing with a 20% mortality rate. This has always been something I have focused on. Keeping the infrastructure in place and functioning even with a large CFR.

This is another one- that is out of nowhere. Obviously this was known for the last two week during the media silence.

Med

Suzi1 wrote: Medical experts say the Chinese strain has an unusually high mortality rate of 20 percent.  Who are the Medical Experts???? I'm going to have to have something a little more than this before I quit my job and move into a hole in the ground. And trust me I am ready to do so. I will be watching for any additional info. I'm always looking for clues.

i don't blame you. And since you sound like a logical person, why are they saying this now, and not giving how they got the number? Why would China be trying to scare its own people and cut off its pork industry? That one doesn't make since. This was a hard find. I am still trying to get more data. However, I think China Daily is unlikely to make up a sweeping flu epidemic naming provinces and areas. Remember, now in China is it like a death sentence to misreport flu information. This one is not just going to go away with a few, I find it hard to believe posts. Thius one is going to take some real solid data.

Medclinician

Med

 I am going to have to start reading more carefully and look at dates also.

A 20% CFR is black death like. This is truly horrid. I think I am going to go into SIP before the first of september. This really is going to be catastrophic. If this is all true then the federal authorities need to be very worried about massive civil unrest.

Mahshadin wrote: Med this swine stuff is very interesting especially from a historical perspective. Much has been posted on this site on the topic as well. I think we are all now getting the connection in a very real way. A largely ignored or minimized subject (Swine Flu) has taken a back seat even though evidence showed a direct link to more likely Pandemic Possibilities.   Heres some stuff from this site  from awhile ago if anyone is interested.

You're right. As you start going back and reading up on the history of Swine Flu it was kind of eclipsed by Avian and SARS. It has been around awhile though.. even in humans.

Med

Curtain lowering from brief window of news. Just as this morning picked up the news of widespread massive flu in China- once more the veil is dropping as quickly as it lifted.
Moving away from the much too revealing news of not only the extent at which it is spreading throughout China, comes the barrage on the search engines of coverup news making it even more difficult to track back to the original story and what WHOs reaction is. So far, there has been no official comment made on the breaking news or on the Red Orbit coverage of a possible 20% CFR.

The windows of information into what is happening Avian or Swine Flu wise in China are sometimes very brief. One instance early this year after a rash of Avian Flu outbreaks in the first quarter of 2009, then there was only silence.

Now only 15 hours from when this story was picked up on the wire, the curtain descends once more. Both cases originally picked up on a less known search engine are gone and now we must include -2008 -2007 -2005 to avoid an avalanche of search engine dummies which push the entry far below the first few pages on the search or off all together.

Both entries and pages present this morning from AFT are gone replaced by a lonely entry from EIN yesterday.

second post- which turned up as a august 1st post on my engine has already been sacked - but the first is stilll hanging in there.   Med

>posting<

backing up to events leading to the massive spread in China

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/international-9/1248538038270960.xml&storylist=health

China says 36 schoolchildren sick with swine flu

7/25/2009, 11:13 a.m. EDT The Associated Press

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/international-9/1248538038270960.xml&storylist=health

(AP) — BEIJING - A group of 36 primary students who attended a summer school in Beijing were hospitalized with swine flu, a state news agency said Saturday.

The students were among 80 students at a training camp on July 11-20, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Beijing health bureau. The other students were quarantined for observation.

China has acted aggressively to detect and contain swine flu cases after being accused of failing to move quickly enough to stop the 2003 outbreak of SARS.

< ="http://ads.nj.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/www.nj.com//story/ap/__///@StoryAd" ="1.1">

The Health Ministry said Friday that 1,852 cases of H1N1 swine flu have been reported. None has been fatal.

This past week, the British embassy reported that nine visiting British students were diagnosed with swine flu and 107 of their classmates and teachers were quarantined. American students who were in Beijing for a volleyball camp also have been quarantined.

dr d wrote: Suzi THe ACIP the group which is charged with the flu vaccination and "who's first"in  line,has stated to physicians this past Wednesday that the infection rate here in the USA is "between 22% to 33%". So if they are admitting one million cases and the infection rate is 22%of the pop. how far away from reality are they willing to be to keep the populace complacent?? We ahve had a "rash" of pneumonias here with high mortality rates. Etiology undetermined

Dr. D, I really doubt the infection rate is already 22-33% in the US. 33% would mean 100 million people are infected. If it was 22-33% then in two weeks we would see a "very large" number of deaths. If we don't see a huge amount of deaths then it's not 22-33% or the mortality rate is ridiculously low. I think it's only 1-2% but will hit 30-50% in the next 12-18 months. I saw three people coughing at the stores this week out of thousands of people. Give it 6-8 weeks and then we might see those numbers you quoted.

We are not going to get any good numbers. We need to start depending on the Swine Flu site when this hits. We will each of us who have volunteered report deaths as reported in local news.

We will not have accurate numbers from our government I guarantee that!

When someone dies of pneumonia will they be tested for Swine Flu.

The following bacterial cultures obtained within 24 hours after admission were negative: cultures of blood specimens from six patients, of bronchial aspirate samples from two patients, and of pleural-fluid specimens from one patient. Three of these patients had received antibiotics within 24 to 48 hours before admission. No other respiratory viruses or atypical bacteria were identified by means of PCR assay in any patient tested.

All 18 patients had radiologically confirmed pneumonia (Figure 3A, and Fig. S2 and S3 in the Supplementary Appendix) with bilateral patchy alveolar opacities (predominantly basal), affecting three or four lung quadrants in 11 patients. Also common were linear, reticular, or nodular shadows (interstitial opacities). Findings on chest radiographs were consistent with the acute respiratory distress syndrome in all patients requiring mechanical ventilation.¹¹

Source

Mary008 wrote:   Results of other routine tests were within normal limits. The following bacterial cultures obtained within 24 hours after admission were negative: cultures of blood specimens from six patients, of bronchial aspirate samples from two patients, and of pleural-fluid specimens from one patient. Three of these patients had received antibiotics within 24 to 48 hours before admission. No other respiratory viruses or atypical bacteria were identified by means of PCR assay in any patient tested. All 18 patients had radiologically confirmed pneumonia (Figure 3A, and Fig. S2 and S3 in the Supplementary Appendix) with bilateral patchy alveolar opacities (predominantly basal), affecting three or four lung quadrants in 11 patients. Also common were linear, reticular, or nodular shadows (interstitial opacities). Findings on chest radiographs were consistent with the acute respiratory distress syndrome in all patients requiring mechanical ventilation.11 Source Published at www.nejm.org June 29, 2009 (10.1056/NEJMoa0904252) Pneumonia and Respiratory Failure from Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1) in Mexico http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMoa0904252     ....................

Mary- you realize that this isn't going to mean much to the layman reader. I am seeing a shift in China where suddenly we have a massive outbreak of pneumonia (the mother of all misdiagnosed viruses) for a scape goat of Swine Flu.

It is much like mixing up Dengue Fever with H5N1. This is not a primary lung bug- it has a 40% incidence of GI symptoms, and people who die from it, 50% have other problems and often their death is diagnosed as the cause of one of these problems.

All of this put together makes for a great catch pit of diagnosis of Swine Flu as pneumonia. How accurate if PCR in catching all pneumonia viruses.

http://www.mdconsult.com/das/article/body/152471900-2/jorg=journal&source=&sp=19712438&sid=0/N/596715/1.html?issn=

http://journals.lww.com/co-infectiousdiseases/Abstract/2009/04000/Viral_pneumonia.10.aspx

Med

Mary008 wrote: you realize that this isn't going to mean much to the layman reader. ....................................................................   I beg to differ...   :)        40% incidence of GI symptoms     this is ...much higher.. than the number I find...

I had several links to 40% - but they are no longer functional... however here is one to 30%- of course this will vary- but almost 1/3 is a significant number with GI symptoms.

Related versions of the same strain of swine flu that mainly circulated in pigs infected at least 11 people in the US from 2005 through 2009, CDC researchers said in another study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Those patients suffered standard flu symptoms, such as fever and cough, and about 30 percent had some diarrhea, said the scientists, who were led by Vivek Shinde, a CDC influenza expert.

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/science/10041-experts-swine-flu-ancestors-may-protect-elderly.html

here is your 40%

http://health.taragana.net/articles/researchers-say-swine-flu-inefficient-in-binding-to-nose-and-throat-but-could-get-worse/

Also Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the U.S. will provide 420,000 treatment courses of the anti-viral medicine Tamiflu to the Pan-American Health Organization to help fight the flu in Latin America and the Caribbean. “All of us have a responsibility to help support one another in the face of this challenge,” Sebelius said at a meeting of health ministers in Mexico.

Sasisekharan’s paper, meanwhile, warned that the H1N1 strain might just need a single change or mutation to make it resistant to Tamiflu.

The researchers also noted that the new virus is more active in the gastrointestinal tract than seasonal flu, leading to intestinal distress and vomiting in about 40 percent of those infected.

This is solid.

Medclinician

i am always very sceptical for any news that begins with: " medical experts say....."

WHO Pacific Region Report

http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/news/news_20090804.htm

MANILA, 4 August 2009, 1600 hrs–Health officials in Taiwan (China) urged planners of mass gatherings to include public health measures in their preparations, after several participants at a student conference were diagnosed last week with Pandemic (H1N1) 2009.

Six students at a medical students’ conference tested positive for the virus, according to the Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) in Taipei. The CECC advised event organizers to implement voluntary screening of participants for influenza-like illness, detect and isolate any person with such illness as early as possible, and encourage participants and staff to wash their hands frequently and practice good cough and sneeze etiquette.

The Ministry of Health in Taiwan (China) said outpatient visits due to influenza-like illness had been increasing for the past month, as had emergency room visits by patients with influenza-like symptoms. Last week, Taiwan (China) reported its first death related to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, a 39-year old person with pre-existing health conditions including chronic hepatitis B, according to local media reports.

The number of fatalities in the Western Pacific Region stands at 112, following the deaths in Malaysia of two people infected with Pandemic (H1N1) 2009. Local media reports in Malaysia said the deceased were a 23-year-old new mother and a 51-year old female teacher.

Australia has reported 70 deaths related to the virus, the highest number of fatalities of any country, territory or area in the Western Pacific Region. Australia is at the "protect" phase of health management for the virus, which is focused on caring for the most medically vulnerable and patients with severe disease.

In New Zealand, which has reported 14 deaths associated with the virus, Health Ministry Tony Ryall said health facilities were coping better as the number of hospital admissions and the need for intensive care beds had dropped off in recent days.

“It’s is too early to say whether this signals any weakening in pandemic influenza or whether we are seeing the normal fluctuation that you expect, particularly with a new virus”, said Mr Ryall. “It is common for influenza numbers to rise and fall over several months and this pandemic may follow a similar pattern.”

Several countries in the Western Pacific Region have shifted from containment to a mitigation phase in response to Pandemic (H1N1) 2009, and are no longer testing all suspected cases nor reporting new confirmed cases daily. As a result, the actual number of infections in the Region is likely to be higher than official WHO figures.

medclinician