Swine Flu,Alert -Argentina: H1N1 to peak by July 14?
Argentina: H1N1 to peak by July 14?
As part of the measures to combat the outbreak of H1N1 influenza, 17 provinces in Argentina have suspended classes including Buenos Aires province and City: Santiago del Estero, Entre Ríos, Corrientes, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Neuquén, Misiones, Córdoba, Catamarca, San Luis, Río Negro, Chaco, Mendoza, La Pampa and Tierra del Fuego.
The high schools of the Buenos Aires University — Pelegrini, Nacional Buenos Aires, IyLSE —and many more suspended classes, to prevent a possible outbreak of the disease. Hospitals are giving free the injection that relief the virus , but the patient has to be hospitalized when the virus is detected and then stay in rest for 2 weeks when the most of cases could be prevented. The use of alcohol and antiseptics in all places it s the major prevention as to not be in a crowd of people and take care of the contagious when a person only can cough ,the virus goes very fast person to person that is why the infected people is so high in a very short term almost 100 000 ,
older people are less risk because they have more inmunology to virus , children and people till 50 years depends how strong and healthy they are can resist the virus contagious.
It is not just a flu case is very atipical , even in Argetina never happened this kind of pandemia.
The authorities said that it will decrease till july 30 th when the winter goes away , the coldest month but affect more in the city area of Buenos Aires than the south of the country they have more snow and very cold weather but people living there are more inmune to this kind of virus .
All flights travels to the south like teenagers use to do every winter to sky as winter hollidays , are suspended too .
The members of the Supreme Court of Justice are meeting today to analyze which measures to adopt as a result of the outbreak of swine flu, judicial sources said.
The court is expected to suspend judicial activity for a few weeks, to prevent contagions among public servants of the judicial branch.
Meanwhile, the health minister of Buenos Aires province, Claudio Zin, told the press that according to official statistics, "five percent of the swine flu cases can be serious," and that the rest of the cases normally heal without the need to hospitalize the patient.
Official declaration of cases under scientific tests are 2850 . 1t is known our of record that there are 100 000 people infected ,47 deaths
As a result of the winter season, Zin said, the outbreak of swine flu is expected to peak in two weeks.
Government authorities from the province and City of Buenos Aires have decided to extend winter holidays, and bring them forward to next Monday. The health emergency has been declared in both districts.
Buenos Aires City's Health Minister Jorge Lemus assured that "the City's health system has suficient medications" and that "hospitals are over-crowded, but not collapsed." For the moment, cinemas, theatres, and restaurants will remain open.Authorities in northern-hemisphere countries should be tracking the actions of their colleagues in the southern hemisphere. They may be facing the same decisions before the end of the year.
The 2009 flu pandemic is an A(H1N1) pandemic and a global outbreak of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1, identified in April 2009, commonly referred to as "swine flu", which is transmitted between humans. It is thought to be a mutation—more specifically, a reassortment—of four known strains of influenza A virus subtype H1N1: one endemic in humans, one endemic in birds, and two endemic in pigs (swine). Experts now assume that the virus "most likely" emerged from pigs in Asia, and the virus was carried to North America by infected people. There is further evidence that the new strain has been circulating among pigs, possibly among multiple continents, for many years prior to its transmission to humans. Virtually all transmission is from human to human; cooked pork products are safe for humans and the virus cannot be transmitted from foods.
The outbreak began in Mexico, and there is evidence that Mexico was already in the midst of an epidemic for months before the outbreak was recognized. Soon after, their government closed down most of Mexico City's public and private offices and facilities to help contain the spread. In early June, as the virus spread globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a pandemic, while also noting that the virus has so far been of "moderate severity." WHO anticipates a bleaker picture, however, as the virus spreads to less developed countries with poorer health care systems. As of July, the virus was continuing to spread worldwide, especially in Southern Hemisphere countries, where the winter flu season has started.
The virus typically spreads from coughs and sneezes or by touching contaminated surfaces and then touching the nose or mouth. Symptoms are similar to those of seasonal flu, and may include fever, sneezes, sore throat, coughs, headache, and muscle or joint pains. The CDC notes that most hospitalizations have been of people that also had underlying conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or a weakened immune systems. In an attempt to slow the spread of the illness, a number of countries, especially in Asia, have enforced strict quarantines on travelers showing any symptoms, along with travelers seated nearby any infected persons. Some have even requested pre-screening passengers before they travel.
WHO anticipates having some vaccines ready by September 2009, and by mid October for the U.S., but even then they expect that the supply will be limited. Two or three vaccine injections will be required for maximum immunity from both the swine flu and seasonal flu. There is also concern that the virus could mutate later in the year and become more virulent and less susceptible to any new vaccine. This concern is partly due to the memory of the 1918 flu pandemic, which is thought to have killed between 40 and 100 million people, and was preceded by a wave of milder cases in the spring.
Annual influenza epidemics are estimated to affect 5–15% of the global population. Although most cases are mild, this still causes severe illness in 3–5 million people and around 250,000–500,000 deaths worldwide. In industrialized countries severe illness and deaths occur mainly in the high-risk populations of infants, the elderly, and chronically ill patients.[65]
In addition to these annual epidemics, Influenza A virus strains caused three major global epidemics during the 20th century: the Spanish flu in 1918, Asian flu in 1957 and in 1968–69. These Hong Kong flupandemics were caused by strains of Influenza A virus that had undergone major genetic changes and for which the population did not possess significant immunityGENEVA — Swine flu is now formally a pandemic, a declaration by U.N. health officials that will speed vaccine production and spur government spending to combat the first global flu epidemic in 41 years.
Thursday’s announcement by the World Health Organization doesn’t mean the virus is any more lethal — only that its spread is considered unstoppable.
Since it was first detected in late April in Mexico and the United States, swine flu has reached 74 countries, infecting nearly 29,000 people. Most who catch the bug have only mild symptoms and don’t need medical treatment.
WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the long-awaited declaration after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts and said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency’s highest alert level — which means a pandemic is under way.
“The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century,” Chan said in Geneva.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, the new head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta that he does not expect widespread public anxiety in the United States as a result of the declaration, noting it came nearly two months after the virus was identified.
For many weeks, U.S. health officials have been treating it as a pandemic, increasing the availability of anti-viral flu medicines and pouring money into a possible vaccination program. And scientists have grown to understand that the virus is generally not much more severe than the seasonal flu.
“That helps to tamp down any fears that may be excessive,” Frieden said at a news conference — his first as CDC director.
But the virus can still be deadly and may change into a more frightening form in the near future, and so people should not be complacent, he added.
So far, swine flu has caused 144 deaths, compared with ordinary flu that kills up to 500,000 people a year.
The pandemic decision might have been made much earlier if WHO had more accurate information about swine flu’s rising sweep through Europe. Chan said she called the emergency meeting with flu experts after concerns were raised that some countries, such as Britain, were not accurately reporting their cases.
Chan said the experts unanimously agreed there was a wider spread of swine flu than was being reported.
She would not say which country tipped the world into the pandemic, but WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said the situation from Australia seemed to indicate the virus was spreading rapidly there — more than 1,300 cases were reported by Thursday.
In Chile, authorities have identified almost 1,700 cases to WHO.
Many health experts said the world has been in a pandemic for weeks but WHO became too bogged down by politics to declare one. In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would cause social and economic turmoil. At the time, WHO said it would rewrite its pandemic definition to avoid announcing one.
But with the recent surge in cases across Europe, Chile, Australia and Japan, the agency was under increasing pressure to acknowledge a pandemic.
“This is WHO finally catching up with the facts,” said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota.
David Ropeik, an expert in risk perception and communication at Harvard University, says the word pandemic is less frightening than when emerged during worries about bird flu a few years ago.
He said the “soft buildup” to declaring swine flu a pandemic has been helpful.
“That allows people to get used to what is otherwise a scary word, understand the particulars of the disease, and that should mean reaction will be a little more information-based and a little less emotional,” Ropeik said in an e-mail.
WHO will now recommend that pharmaceutical companies make swine flu vaccine. The agency typically recommends which flu strains drug companies should use in the vaccines. In a global outbreak, WHO also advises whether companies should make pandemic vaccine.
The decision to make pandemic vaccine is a gamble. Most flu vaccine makers cannot make both regular seasonal flu vaccine and pandemic vaccine at the same time. That means they must decide which one the world will need more.
Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC said it could start commercial production of pandemic vaccine in July but that it would take months before large quantities are available.
Glaxo spokesman Stephen Rea said the company’s first doses of vaccine would be reserved for countries who had ordered it in advance, including Belgium, Britain and France. He said Glaxo would also donate 50 million doses to WHO for poor countries.
Pascal Barollier, a spokesman for Sanofi-Aventis, said they were also working on a pandemic vaccine but WHO had not yet asked them to start making mass quantities of it.
WHO described the pandemic as “moderate.” Fukuda said people should not get overly anxious about the virus. “Understand it, put it in context, and then you get on with things,” he said.
Still, about half of the people who have died from swine flu were previously young and healthy — people who are not usually susceptible to flu. Swine flu is also crowding out regular flu viruses. Both features are typical of pandemic flu viruses.
Swine flu is also continuing to spread during the start of summer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappear with warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.
“What this declaration does do is remind the world that flu viruses like H1N1 need to be taken seriously,” said U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, warning that more cases could crop up in the fall.
Now that a pandemic has been declared, some countries might be prompted to devote more money to containing the virus. Many developed countries have pandemic preparedness plans that link spending to a WHO declaration.
The U.N. is keen to avoid panic. “We must guard against rash and discriminatory action, such as travel bans or trade restrictions,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Fear has already gripped Argentina, where thousands have flooded hospitals this week, bringing emergency health services in Buenos Aires to the brink of collapse during winter weather. Last month, a bus arriving in Argentina from Chile was stoned by people who thought a passenger had swine flu.
China has quarantined travelers, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, on the slightest suspicion of contact with an infected person.
The U.S. government has already increased the availability of flu-fighting medicines and authorized $1 billion for developing a new swine flu vaccine. In addition, new cases seem to be declining in many parts of the country, U.S. health officials say, as North America moves out of its traditional winter flu season.
Still, New York City reported three more swine flu deaths , including a child under 2, a teenager and a person in their 30s.
“Countries where outbreaks appear to have peaked should prepare for a second wave of infection,” Chan warned.
AP Medical Writers Maria Cheng reported from London and Michael Stobbe contributed from Atlanta. Jordans reported from Geneva. Michael E. Miller in Mexico City, Edith Lederer in New York, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Vincente L. Panetta in Buenos Aires, and Bradley S. Klapper and Eliane Engeler in Geneva also contributed.
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