Swine flu news and chat IV

[Lee]

Originally Posted by Cindy

I couldn't believe it! Two days ago we were watching the news and each night they have this doctor come on and answer questions about the H!N! flu. They have answered this one particular question, I don't know how many times, but basically the question was how likely is it for someone to get the H!N! flu. The doctor said yet again that according to all their tests that only 1 in 5 people with the flu have tested positive for the H!N! flu so if someone has the flu there's a one in five chance that it's H!N!.

Well last night they announce that 9 out of 10 people who have the flu have H1N!! I couldn't believe my ears!!! So in just 36 hours it's supposedly changed from 20% of the people who have the flu have h1n1 to 90% of the people who have the flu have h1n1!

So of course, that started my rant about how it's become quite obvious now that the "News" stations are no longer giving us the "news" but instead are simply telling us whatever they've been told to tell us! A sad day for America that's for sure! What bothers me though is that the vast majority of the people should be every bit as aware of it as I am, but they sure don't seem to be! Somehow a lot of people sure have become dumb all of a sudden! Especially when it is so totally obvious!

And it wasn't long ago that they were saying that there were NO positive test results for the other types of flu---that EVERYONE who had the flu, had H1N1!! Of course, they haven't been testing for the flu unless your sick enough to be hospitalized since last summer. In other words they be talking out their backside.


THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO RELIABLE STATISTICS CONCERNING H1NI WHATSOEVER!!!

[Lee]

As public health officials urge more rapid use of antivirals for H1N1, some experts worry the drugs could become over-prescribed for what is a relatively mild illness in most people.


More than one-million antiviral doses have been drawn from the federal stockpile in recent months, and the number of prescriptions filled by Canadian retail drugstores for Tamiflu and Relenza, the frontline drugs being used in the pandemic, nearly doubled between September and October.



As of Oct. 30, 151,688 prescriptions had been dispensed by retail pharmacists nationwide so far this year -- an increase of 73,291 prescriptions over September, according to prescription-drug-tracking firm IMS Health Canada.


WHO says otherwise healthy people experiencing only mild illness don't need antivirals. But the world agency warns the virus can cause severe pneumonia even in healthy young people. "The window of opportunity is very narrow to reverse the progression of the disease," Dr. Nikki Shindo, a medical officer in WHO's Global Influenza Programme, said in a recent briefing. "The medicine needs to be administered before the virus destroys the lungs."


WHO is urging doctors not to wait for lab-confirmation before deciding to treat. Tamiflu, or oseltamivir, needs to be given within the first 48 hours of infection to be optimally effective.


"It's a bit of catch-22, when the best impact of the oseltamivir is if you give it early. And yet we're not suggesting that the huge majority of people get oseltamivir," said Dr. Brian Ward, an infectious-disease physician and associate director of The Research Institute at McGill University Health Centre.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/sto...#ixzz0XhGBcmVa

[Lee]

The pandemic of swine flu may be hitting a peak in the Northern Hemisphere, global health officials said on Friday, but they cautioned it was far from over.

Officials also said they were investigating several troubling outbreaks of drug-resistant H1N1 but noted they were limited so far and that there were no indications yet the virus was mutating in a sustained way.

The World Health Organization said H1N1 flu was moving eastward across Europe and Asia after appearing to peak in parts of Western Europe and the United States.

At least 6,770 deaths have been recorded worldwide since the swine flu virus emerged in April -- but officials always stress the confirmed count represents only a fraction of the actual cases, as most patients never get tested.

There are "early signs of a peak in disease activity in some areas of the northern hemisphere," the WHO said in a statement.

Transmission keeps intensifying in Canada, with the highest number of doctor visits by children. But U.S. officials saw signs of a slowdown.

http://macondaily.com/news.asp?id=26421

[Lee]

Saudi Arabia said on Saturday four pilgrims had died of the new H1N1 flu virus three days before the massive Muslim haj is due to begin, al-Hayat newspaper said. The Health Ministry said the deaths were among pilgrims who came from outside Saudi Arabia, al-Hayat online news said.

Some 3 million Muslim pilgrims take part in the haj in the holy city of Mecca every year, including up to 2 million who travel from abroad. Haj rituals this year start on Wednesday.

The pilgrimage provides perfect conditions for the spread of the H1N1 flu virus, which is transmitted by sneezing and physical contact.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LL56626.htm

[Lee]

Four patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday.

The cases reported at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, over six weeks make up the biggest cluster seen so far in the U.S.


Tamiflu — made by Switzerland's Roche Group — is one of two flu medicines that help against swine flu, and health officials have been closely watching for signs that the virus is mutating, making the drugs ineffective.


About 52 resistant cases have been reported in the world since April, including 15 in the U.S. Almost all in the U.S. were isolated, said officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


The BBC reported another cluster of five Tamiflu-resistant cases this week in Wales, in the United Kingdom.


The CDC has sent three disease investigators to North Carolina to help in the investigation there, said Dave Daigle, a CDC spokesman. CDC testing confirmed the Tamiflu-resistant cases.


All four cases at the hospital were very ill patients in an isolated cancer unit on the hospital's ninth floor, and it is believed they all caught the flu while at the hospital, said Dr. Daniel Sexton, professor of medicine and director of the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...nc/health/h1n1

[Lee]

The World Health Organization said Friday it is investigating samples of variant swine flu linked to two deaths and one severe case in Norway, but that so far the significance of the mutation is unclear.

Norway's Institute of Public Health announced Friday that the mutation "could possibly...cause more severe disease" because it infects tissue deeper in the airway than usual.


The mutation was found in three of 70 analyzed swine flu cases, said Geir Stene-Larsen, the institute's director.


Stene-Larsen said he does not believe the mutant virus is circulating in the general population in Norway, where about 680,000 people are estimated to have been infected with swine flu to date and 23 have died.


The same mutation has been found in both fatal and mild cases elsewhere, including in Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine, and the United States, said WHO.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...nc/health/h1n1

[Lee]

The number of H1N1 swine flu deaths in Europe has doubled almost every two weeks since the middle of October and 169 people died of the virus in the past week, disease surveillance experts said on Monday.

The Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said 670 deaths have been reported in Europe from H1N1 flu since they began monitoring it in April and all 31 European Union and European free trade area (EFTA) countries now have cases of the virus.

http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSGEE5AM1CO

[Lee]

Uzbekistan has closed its border with central Asian neighbor Kazakhstan to all but citizens of each nation returning home, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said on Monday, as swine flu spreads in both countries.

Kazakh media and residents of the Uzbek capital Tashkent have connected the move to fears about an outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus, but this has not been confirmed by the authorities there.


The World Health Organization (WHO) reported last Friday that Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and parts of Afghanistan were reporting higher numbers of flu cases.


"The initiative did not come from the Kazakh side," Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a briefing. "There is no official information on the reasons behind this decisions."


http://www.reuters.com/article/world...5AM1O520091123

[jtheb]

It obviously is a real pandemic. But I think that the death rate is less than seasonal flu.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by jtheb

It obviously is a real pandemic. But I think that the death rate is less than seasonal flu.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

Who knows? They can't get their statistics right.

See what Cindy posted in this post

http://www.fresh-hope.com/forums/sho...6&postcount=75


But yet the CDC claims that they aren't testing people unless they are sick enough to be hospitalized.

There are absolutely no reliable numbers at all.

[jtheb]

I would imagine that very few deaths from flu take place without hospitalisation.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by jtheb

I would imagine that very few deaths from flu take place without hospitalisation.

Well if you don't know how many have it, how can you get a percentage of those who die from it? You can't.

[LoveJesus24]

Originally Posted by Lee

— Are you confused by the H1N1 numbers? Wondering why public health officials are making such a fuss about a virus that has so far killed so few people?

You aren't alone.


After all, we're told seasonal flu kills between 4,000 to 8,000 Canadians and between 250,000 and 500,000 people worldwide each year. Yet as of late last week, seven months into this outbreak, H1N1 had killed 161 Canadians and an estimated 6,260 people around the globe.


Critics of Canada's pandemic response point to the discrepancy between those sets of numbers and question the full court press.

"You might as well compare the number of flu deaths with the number of Subarus sold in Canada," says Jordan Ellenberg, an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin who explained the problem in an article published online in Slate Magazine earlier this year.


"If you want to compare the number of confirmed deaths to seasonal flu to the number of confirmed deaths from H1N1, OK, you can do that," he says in an interview. "But what you can't do is compare the number of certified deaths on one side to the best estimate of the full number of deaths on the other side."


Confirmed H1N1 death tallies capture the blessedly few times someone who caught this bug died from it after testing positive for it. The seasonal flu numbers are estimates, mathematical calculations aimed at capturing all the deaths influenza had a hand in.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/can...CoSaz2nHQYREog

They want us to think theSwine flu epidemic is worse than it is so that they (the goverment) can force everyone to get the shot. If somebody develops a disorder as a result of the vaccine Obama care will deny the vitims access to health care and claim it was a pre existing condition. That it existed before the person was vaccinated.
Janna

[jtheb]

"After all, we're told seasonal flu kills between 4,000 to 8,000 Canadians and between 250,000 and 500,000 people worldwide each year. Yet as of late last week, seven months into this outbreak, H1N1 had killed 161 Canadians and an estimated 6,260 people around the globe.


"

What is supposed to be the advantage of making people have the vaccine?

[Lee]

The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline says it has advised medical staff in Canada to not use one batch of swine flu vaccine for fear it may trigger life-threatening allergies.

GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Gwenan White said Tuesday the company issued the advice after reports that one batch of the swine flu vaccine might have caused more allergic reactions than normal.

She says the affected batch contains 172,000 doses of the vaccine. She declined to say how many doses had been administered before the advice to stop using them was given.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktl...,3020591.story

[Lee]

A technology originally developed for premature babies may be helping to save some of the sickest swine flu patients by rerouting their blood so their lungs can rest.

It's a risky approach using equipment that only certain specialized hospitals have. But faced with children and young adults struggling to breathe despite ventilators has intensive-care doctors dusting off these machines, named ECMO, that they often consider last-ditch and almost never use for influenza.


"It was pretty scary knowing that was his blood flowing through those tubes in and out of his body," says Susie Damm of Omaha, Neb., whose 19-year-old son Ryan survived a life-threatening bout after 10 days on ECMO.


"I was one of the people sick and tired of hearing about the swine flu, thinking people were making a big deal of it," she adds. "Now I've had a different look, and I'm very, very thankful" he survived.


No one knows which patients are most likely to benefit — not everyone does. But ECMO is gaining attention after Australian researchers reported that the machines helped during that country's outbreak of what scientists call the 2009 H1N1 flu strain.



A voluntary U.S.-based registry counts 107 critically ill swine flu patients recently treated with ECMO, most from this country.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...nc/health/h1n1

[Lee]

Iowa has officially recorded 21 H1N1 deaths, including seven in Polk County alone. But the county's medical examiner said he has performed autopsies on some residents who were never diagnosed with H1N1, but actually had it."In the autopsy, what we're seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them," said Dr. Gregory Schmunk.

He said the official count of seven H1N1 deaths is inaccurate, but patient rights laws prohibit him from giving specific numbers.

He said there are two reasons for the discrepancy. First, not all sick patients get tests and second, the virus is difficult to detect.

Some patients may be too sick to receive the most accurate H1N1 test."They're not always done and it can be hazardous to the patient if they're in a respiratory critical situation," Schmunk said.

He also said that some tests reveal a false negative."Because of our limitations on testing, sometimes the tests aren't positive," he said.

"They do appear to fit clinically the course of a H1N1 viral-type pneumonia."

http://www.kcci.com/news/21670309/detail.html

[Lee]

Dozens of Needham (NEED'-um) residents who
thought they were vaccinated for the swine flu were mistakenly
given a seasonal flu vaccine.


The town's health director has notified all of those who
received the wrong shot last week, including 15 firefighters.
The mix-up was blamed on confusion over similar-looking labels
for the two vaccines. As a result, other health departments are
being advised to carefully check the labels before administering
the vaccines.


http://www.cbs3springfield.com/news/now/72861682.html

[Lee]

China must be alert to any mutation or changes in the behavior of the H1N1 swine flu virus because the far deadlier H5N1 bird flu virus is endemic in the country, a leading Chinese disease expert said.

Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases in China's southern Guangdong province, said the presence of both viruses in China meant they could mix and become a monstrous hybrid -- a bug packed with strong killing power that can transmit efficiently among people.


"China, as you know, is different from other countries. Inside China, H5N1 has been existing for some time, so if there is really a reassortment between H1N1 and H5N1, it will be a disaster," Zhong said in an interview with Reuters Television.


"This is something we need to monitor, the change, the mutation of the virus. This is why reporting of the death rate must be really transparent."


The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that H5N1 had erupted in poultry in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, posing once again a threat to humans.


"First, it places those in direct contact with birds -- usually rural folk and farm workers -- at risk of catching the often-fatal disease. Second, the virus could undergo a process of "reassortment" with another influenza virus and produce a completely new strain," it said.


"The most obvious risk is of H5N1 combining with the pandemic ... (H1N1) virus, producing a flu virus that is as deadly as the former and as contagious as the latter."


http://www.reuters.com/article/healt...5AO16220091125

[Lee]

Your family might be sharing more than turkey and pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving. Swine flu may also be on the table — and at crowded airports and shopping malls.
Just as the pandemic seems to be waning around the country, some health officials are worried that holiday gatherings could lead to more infections. So the government has launched a new travel-health campaign.


Thanksgiving is typically followed by at least a modest bump in early seasonal flu cases, according to reports from the past few years. But this, of course, is not a typical year. Swine flu is a new virus that accounts for nearly all flu cases right now.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,...nc/health/h1n1

[LoveJesus24]

Originally Posted by Lee

Iowa has officially recorded 21 H1N1 deaths, including seven in Polk County alone. But the county's medical examiner said he has performed autopsies on some residents who were never diagnosed with H1N1, but actually had it."In the autopsy, what we're seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them," said Dr. Gregory Schmunk.

He said the official count of seven H1N1 deaths is inaccurate, but patient rights laws prohibit him from giving specific numbers.

He said there are two reasons for the discrepancy. First, not all sick patients get tests and second, the virus is difficult to detect.

Some patients may be too sick to receive the most accurate H1N1 test."They're not always done and it can be hazardous to the patient if they're in a respiratory critical situation," Schmunk said.

He also said that some tests reveal a false negative."Because of our limitations on testing, sometimes the tests aren't positive," he said.

"They do appear to fit clinically the course of a H1N1 viral-type pneumonia."

http://www.kcci.com/news/21670309/detail.html

Hmm I seem to remember something that was posted here a month maybe twwo ago; they were saying that the form of Swine Flu is another from of TB.
Janna

[Marianne]

Originally Posted by LoveJesus24

Hmm I seem to remember something that was posted here a month maybe twwo ago; they were saying that the form of Swine Flu is another from of TB.
Janna

Yes, TB or even Ebola like symptoms.. mixed together..
My sister passed away on August 26th.. two weeks before she passed she has a very bad cold.. with lots of chest congestion.. the doctor didn't x-ray her chest.. and said it was only allergies.. but, now that I think back.. her chest was very tight.. and I never heard her have such a cough.. she felt a little better later on.. and then just passed away in her sleep.. I often wonder if she had the Swine Flu.. I will never know now.. but, it does cross my mind a lot..

[Marianne]

132 flu patients hit with brain disorders since July

The Yomiuri Shimbun



A total of 132 influenza patients in Tokyo and 27 prefectures have developed encephalopathy, or swelling of the brain, since July, according to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Normally, only about 40 to 50 seasonal flu sufferers develop encephalopathy each year, meaning the latest figure has already more than doubled in four months since the new strain of flu began spreading.

Encephalopathy occurs when viruses cause the immune system to overreact, resulting in a swelling of the brain.

Though the ages of the 132 people in question range from 1 to 67, most were under 15.

By age, 7-year-olds constituted the largest group, with 22 sufferers. This is older than the average age for encephalopathy sufferers, who are most often aged between 1 and 3.



more
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national...24TDY03303.htm

[jtheb]

Marianne my deepest sympathy.

TB and Ebola are of course quite different diseases.

[Marianne]

Originally Posted by jtheb

Marianne my deepest sympathy.

TB and Ebola are of course quite different diseases.

I realize that JT.. but, I know that people who have had Ebola.. bleed.. TB on the other hand.. affects the lungs.. it's seems almost like a combination of the two.. but, then again I may be wrong.. JMHO..