CTV.ca | WHO predicts 'explosion' of swine flu cases:
Updated Fri. Aug. 21 2009 8:35 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The World Health Organization on Friday urged governments to prepare for a second wave of swine flu this fall, estimating that as many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years.
That's about one-third of the world's population. The WHO has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities, especially in poorer countries."
WHO Western Pacific director Shin Young-soo predicted many countries may see swine flu cases double every three to four days for several months until peak transmission is reached.
"At a certain point, there will seem to be an explosion in case numbers," Shin told a symposium of health officials and experts in Beijing. "It is certain there will be more cases and more deaths."
While areas in the southern hemisphere such as Australia appear to be experiencing flu seasons not much more severe than average, it is in developing countries where the fast spread of swine flu poses the greatest threat.
In those countries, it will place underequipped and underfunded health systems under severe strain, Shin said. Governments must do what they can now to prepare their health systems, said Shin.
"We only have a short time period to reach the state of preparedness deemed necessary," Shin said. "Communities must be aware before a pandemic strikes as to what they can do to reduce the spread of the virus, and how to obtain early treatment of severe cases."
In a video address to the symposium, WHO chief Margaret Chan also warned: "We cannot say for certain whether the worst is over or the worst is yet to come."
"We need to be prepared for whatever surprises this capricious new virus delivers next... constant random mutation is the survival mechanism of the microbial world," she said
She reminded that pregnant women face a higher risk of complications. The virus also has more severe effects on people with underlying conditions such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disorders and diabetes.
Chan said the issue of how to ensure adequate vaccine supplies worldwide needed to be tackled "head on."
"We need to gather advice on priority groups for initial protection," Chan said.
"This is one of the most difficult decisions governments around the world will need to make, especially as we know that supplies will be extremely limited for some months to come."
WHO urges restraint on use of Tamiflu
The World Health Organization also offered new advice to doctors Friday on the use of antiviral medications such as Tamiflu, saying otherwise healthy with mild to moderate cases do not need the medication.
Those at risk for complications from swine flu -- children younger than five years old, pregnant women, people over age 65 and those with other health problems like heart disease, HIV or diabetes -- should get the drug, WHO said.
The agency also recommended that all patients who develop worsening cases, with breathing difficulties, chest pain or severe weakness, should get Tamiflu immediately, perhaps in higher doses than now used.
The advice contradicts some current government policies, particularly those in England. There, the health agency has been liberally handing out Tamiflu to anyone suspected of having the infection.
By contrast, Tamiflu is given in Canada only to those with severe cases or when the patient is at a great risk for complications.
But in Britain, where stockpiles of Tamiflu are more plentiful than in Canada, residents can call a national hotline to get Tamiflu without seeing a doctor. It is given out by call centre operators who have no medical training. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales decided not to participate in the swine flu phone line.
Some experts have criticized the approach, warning it increases the chances of resistant strains emerging.
Flu expert Hugh Pennington of the University of Aberdeen has called the strategy "a very big experiment" and said England's approach was out of step with the rest of the world.
So far, only a handful of cases of Tamiflu-resistance in swine flu have been documented, including one in a Quebec man. But there has been widespread drug resistance in other H1N1 strains that are not swine flu.
With reports from The Associated Press
Friday, August 21, 2009
CTV.ca | WHO predicts 'explosion' of swine flu cases
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Truth About How You Can Avoid Swine Flu Infection And Still Be Killed By A Pandemic
When most people think about the prospect of a severe pandemic visiting their neck of the woods, it is the fear of becoming infected that scares them. In the case of a flu strain that kills as efficiently as the one that circled the world in 1918, the prospect is hardly a comforting one.
In the case of blue collar workers it is believed that in some U.S. communities the mortality rate for those infected was as high as 10 percent. In more epidemiologically isolated communities, like the Inuit Eskimo tribes of Alaska, the mortality rate reached 90 percent and virtually wiped those communities off the map.
Less widely appreciated is that a pandemic need not even reach your door in order to be able to kill you or a family member. During a severe pandemic you could literally starve to death while never having come in close contact with the virus. This is just one of the conclusions I reached after reading "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza", which will have you rethinking just how much you really understand about your own place in the world. Because it turns out that we are a lot more delicately positioned than we like to believe.
Here is what I am talking about. Get up from your chair and head to the kitchen and make a quick inventory of the amount of food you have. How long would it last you if you discovered tomorrow that the shelves would be empty in the stores where you shop? Most retailers today work on a "just in time" model - they stock just enough product to keep the shelves full for a few days, and restock just as frequently as new shipments come in. Nobody stores in quantity any more because their margins are too thin to accommodate the extra expense. So any disruption to the fulfillment line means rapid onset of delivery problems, to stores, to customers, to you and your family.
In the event of a national crisis that should knock out truck drivers - and this could simply be due to fear that once they get in their trucks and embark on a long haul they will not be available if a family member falls gravely ill during a pandemic - the panic sweeping of inventory by consumers could easily clear store shelves in as little as 24 hours, leaving whatever you have in your cupboards as the only food and water you may be able to get your hands on for weeks.
Your neighbors will be facing the exact same dilemma, so don't bother looking to them to bail you out. Nor should you expect the government to come rushing in with supplies to help you. That kind of thing happens only during local emergencies, not the kind of nation-wide threat we are talking about here where *everyone* is experiencing the same kind of disruptions to their normal existence.
If you are lucky enough to have a huge stockpile of food in your home - enough to get you through the crisis with some rationing - you will not want to advertise the fact. If your neighbor is faced with the option of either watching his family starve to death, or forcibly take food and water from you to make sure that does not happen, well, your life may be threatened yet again.
As I said at the outset, a virus that causes a severe pandemic does not need to reach your door in order for it to claim your life or the life of a family member. It only has to spread fear to get the job done. This is just one of the startling conclusions you will reach yourself once you have read "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza"
The Truth About The Swine Flu - This News Will Really Freak You Out
If I was to ask you how lethal the current swine flu strain is, you would probably say "not very?" and hope that things are going to stay that way. Well, me too. But I have also been looking at this thing more closely, and the number I come up with for the mortality rate is about 3 in every 10,000 new infections. At least, that's how swine flu has been behaving up until mid 2009.
Of course, things can always change overnight, and that is why we have several major vaccine companies racing to get a vaccine into the hands of the public before it is truly needed.
But that mortality rate is surprisingly low. Especially when you consider that the last time an H1N1 swine flu virus began spreading unchecked in the human population it eventually morphed into a killer that was capable of killing roughly 500 of every 10,000 people newly infected. In some small and socially remote communities the mortality rate reached a level equivalent to a stunning 9,000 of every 10,000 new infections. This makes the current swine flu virus with its 3 in 10,000 seem like small potatoes indeed.
Just keep in mind that the 1918 strain started out as small potatoes too, and took six months or so to ramp up the numbers. No one knows if that might happen again, but nobody who understands the highly mutating nature of influenza A is prepared to rule it out either. The amazing thing I learned, while reading "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza", is that even if the current swine flu strain never manages to become more deadly than it is right now, we could still see a repeat of 1918 from none other than the original virus itself.
How is that possible, you ask? It turns out that through an amazing chain of events starting with Abraham Lincoln, who issued a proclamation to study diseases on the battlefield during the Civil War, and ending with a molecular biologist who was able to string the virus back together in 2005 after it had been dead for nearly nine decades, the monster strain is alive and well and ready to wreak havoc again the moment somebody in the lab gets sloppy with their safety protocols.
So do not let the slowness with which the new swine flu strain is becoming more threatening lull you into complacency about pandemic influenza. There is now something in the lab that ought to be keeping us all awake at night. To find out more about this amazing development, I recommend you read the full story in "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza"
Are You Eligible For The Swine Flu Shot Or Will You Be Denied?
Nobody enjoys going to get a flu shot, but we do expect that if we want one, getting in line for it should simply be a matter of showing up for the event. But what if that was not the case? What if you discovered that you were actually turned away from an inoculation center because you did not fit a predefined "profile" for who is eligible to receive a shot?
Ironically, in a year in which a pandemic strain is circling the globe, this is a very real possibility. Right now we know for certain that swine flu vaccines will be in short supply until sometime in 2010. That means not everyone can be vaccinated against the new pandemic virus.
In fact, vaccine manufacturers let it be known in mid August that instead of the initial 120 million doses of swine flu vaccine that they had projected would be made available for distribution to the U.S. population, only 45 million doses are likely to materialize.
Not only is this not great news, we still have no idea yet whether the new vaccine will even offer significant protection - the 2008 seasonal flu vaccine protected only 44 percent of those who received the shot. So the availability and efficacy of swine flu vaccine is still very much up in the air.
Right now this is not a huge concern, because the virus has not claimed a large number of lives. In fact, it has so far caused no more misery than the seasonal flu, which claims up to a half million lives across the globe every year. But that could change quickly, and if the new swine flu strain suddenly proves to be significantly more lethal than it has been, people will want to be vaccinated, and finding themselves denied the shot could be very worrisome.
So who will be allowed to get the shot when it first becomes available?
First responders to emergencies need to remain healthy, as do doctors and other health workers who will take care of the sick. Members of the military are also likely to go into the line, as are children, who have shown a higher tendency to fall sick, pregnant women, and anyone with cardiac problems, high blood pressure, or other underlying health problems than can cause a lowered immune response.
If you are otherwise healthy, and you are an adult, then you will likely have to go to the back of the line and wait until early 2010 before you can be vaccinated. Given that the U.S. will get its hands on an estimated 45 million doses of the new vaccine by late October, and depending on whether one or two shots are required to invoke an antibody response to the new swine flu, about one seventh (more likely), to one third of the population of the United States could be vaccinated during the first round.
But if you are NOT one of the lucky first to be vaccinated, and the virus does turn significantly worse, all is not lost. There are still antiviral drugs that can be administered to break an infection that has got started in your body. To learn more about your options I recommend that you check out "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza", which was written in response to the emergence of the new pandemic. It goes into great detail about pandemic influenza, and what you can do to protect both yourself and your family from the threat.
You can find out more about the book and the vaccine situation by reading "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza"
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Why Flu Vaccination Matters: Personal Stories from Families Affected by Flu
The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention put out the following 7 minute video of personal stories from families affected adversely by flu, to remind us of the dangers. While the deaths of less than about 100 small children result from seasonal influenza or its complications every year, this number can swell to thousands, even tens of thousands, during a severe pandemic, and the number of older children and young adults whose lives may be lost can also be substantially greater than anything seen during a regular flu year.
Despite the fact that, to date, the new swine flu strain SEEMS to give rise (most of the time) to fairly mild cases of illness, pandemic flu is completely unpredictable and you need to educate yourself ahead of time so that you will be prepared for any eventuality.
I strongly recommend getting a copy of the book "Survive Pandemic Flu: Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza".
Read the first 45 pages of Survive Pandemic Flu to learn the extraordinary story of pandemic influenza in the 20th century, and the public health ramifications brought on by the newly-emerging swine flu virus of 2009.
This is a story that every family needs to understand, so that they may prepare ahead of time, and be ready for any development in this ongoing threat.
You can find out more about the book at www.SurvivePandemicFlu.com
Unless you feel convinced that you are immune to swine flu, this is one book you will want to have read by the time the virus appears at your front door.
Here Is Why I Changed My Mind About Swine Flu
I suspect that for most people their concern about swine flu peaked the day that the World Health Organization raised their warning level all the way up to level 6 and declared that they were at "full pandemic status". Since then the world has not melted or anything, so we have all gone back to business as usual. I know that I have, and I think most people have taken the view that this thing is pretty much yesterday's story and that swine flu is about as harmful as a drink of water.
And you know what? So far, it looks as if that's about right (yes, some people have died of swine flu complications, but a lot less than were initially expected). I have to admit that I was starting to feel the same way, but I have just finished reading a book called "Survive Pandemic Flu - Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza", and what I found out is that looks can be deceiving when it comes to strains of flu. The author points out that the last time we saw a flu strain like this novel H1N1 strain begin spreading around the world, it ended with the deaths of about 100 million people.
It did not happen that long ago either. It was 1918, less than a century ago. An H1N1 strain came out of nowhere at about the same time of the year, spring time, and then vanished a month or two later without causing much of a problem. But then it came back in the fall.
This time it was completely changed, and that dopey virus that caused little loss of sleep in the early part of the year was suddenly dropping people in their tracks. Those that turned blue did not last very long, and in most cities around the world they quickly ran out of coffins and had to stack corpses in makeshift piles and bury them in mass graves.
Well, I could go on about the obvious parallels between the strain that emerged in 1918 and the one we are dealing with in 2009. But really, I would only be scratching the surface of a very involved story that actually goes back to Abraham Lincoln and something he did during the Civil War. Something which guaranteed that even if nature acting on its own does not come up with a twin version of that 1918 strain, we may yet get to experience it again anyway.
That was just one of the surprising things I discovered in Survive Pandemic Flu: Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza, and I can guarantee you that those "idiot" WHO officials that we all laughed at earlier when they raised the alarm and then nothing bad seemed to happen, well, they aren't quite the idiots we made them out to be. Not by a long shot.
Trust me, if you think all those swine flu warnings were hype and that our troubles are now behind us, then you are going to be one of the 99 percent of the population that gets caught with its pants down when the nasty hits the fan. No one knows whether it will be this year, the next, or five years from now. But if you would rather be among the one percent whose family isn't taken by surprise, get a hold of this book. Heck, for the cost of cheap family meal you get an education that might just save the life of a family member one day.
So drop what you are doing, and check out Survive Pandemic Flu: Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza right now so that you can get prepared well ahead of time. I know that my family is going to be a lot better off for me having learned what is in this book, and what I can do to make sure they are protected as much as possible against any pandemic threat - no matter when it makes its appearance.
Usually when someone tells you that some book they are recommending may be the most important one you will read this year, you already KNOW that it is a line. But in this case, that's just not true. At any rate, you can decide for yourself when you go check it out. You can thank me later for pointing you in the right direction.
At the very least, sign up to grab the introductory chapters of the book to learn the extraordinary story of pandemic influenza in the 20th century, and the public health ramifications brought on by the newly-emerging swine flu virus of 2009. If you read those and you still think you and your family have nothing to fear from the next pandemic you will at least know where to find the information later if you discover you were wrong.
This is a story that every family needs to understand, so that they may prepare ahead of time, and be ready for any development in this ongoing threat.
Unless you feel convinced that you are immune to swine flu, this is one book you will want to have read by the time the virus appears at your front door and I strongly recommend getting a copy of the book "Survive Pandemic Flu: Understand and Protect Against Novel Strains Of Influenza".
