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Swine Flu Suspected in Thousands, With ‘Less Severe’ Illness
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By Tom Randall
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu reached 14 countries on three continents, killing at a slower rate than past global outbreaks, world health officials said.
Hong Kong, France and Denmark confirmed their first flu cases today. Hong Kong, part of China, declared a public-health emergency. Laboratory tests verified that 365 people in North America, Europe, Asia and New Zealand had the illness, with 10 deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s Web site. New York officials said they suspect thousands of additional cases, so many that the government has stopped testing most.
Geneva-based WHO raised the six-tier pandemic alert to 5 on April 29 and may move soon to the highest level, declaring the world’s first influenza pandemic since 1968. WHO urged countries to make final preparations against the disease, formally called H1N1. While initial cases have been similar to seasonal flu, the new strain may flash across the globe, preying on a population with no natural immunity, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We need to prepare for the long term,” President Barack Obama said today in Washington. “Even if it turns out that the H1N1 is relatively mild on the front end, it could come back in a more virulent form during the actual flu season.”
In Hong Kong, a 25-year-old Mexican man flew into the city yesterday from Shanghai after originally departing from Mexico. The man was prescribed Tamiflu and quarantined. The hotel where he was staying was cordoned off by police today, according to York Chow, the city’s health secretary.
2003 SARS Outbreak
Hong Kong was the center of an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003 that killed 299 there and 774 worldwide.
Evidence suggests “transmission is widespread, and that less severe illness is common,” the Atlanta-based CDC said in a report today. In Mexico, where WHO said nine of 10 confirmed deaths from the virus occurred, “a large number of undetected cases of illness might exist in persons seeking care in primary- care settings or not seeking care at all.”
New York health officials will test for swine flu only in patients with a severe illness or where there may be a cluster of cases, said the New York City health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, at a news conference today. All of the 49 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 likely infected New Yorkers have had mild symptoms similar to those of seasonal flu, he said.
In the U.S., at least 433 schools closed today in 17 states, leaving parents to find other arrangements for 245,449 students, according to the Education Department. Five colleges also closed, the department said in an e-mail.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a U.S. agency based in Atlanta, raised its flu count to 141 cases in 19 states, including a 22-month-old child who died April 27 at a Houston hospital.
Pigs, People, Birds
The new influenza strain, a conglomeration of genes from swine, bird and human viruses, poses the biggest threat of a large-scale flu pandemic since the emergence of the H5N1 strain in 2003 that has killed millions of birds and hundreds of people, said William Schaffner, an influenza expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, in an interview yesterday.
That disease killed more than half of the people who contracted it, though the virus didn’t spread from person to person and only infected 421 people. The Spanish flu of 1918, another version of bird flu, killed as many as 50 million people in one of the most deadly disease outbreaks known.
‘We Have to Be Careful’
“There are some genetic tests that have shown the virus we’re dealing with right now does not have the factors that we think made the 1918 virus so bad,” said Julie Gerberding, former head of the CDC, in an interview today on ABC News. “But we have to be careful not to overrely on that information, because these flu viruses always evolve.”
Thousands of samples from sick patients are backlogged for testing, WHO said yesterday.
As the number of people sick with flu continued to rise, an outbreak in Spain may show the virus is establishing itself beyond Mexico and the U.S., approaching WHO’s definition of a pandemic. The agency needs evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission outside North America to declare the outbreak a pandemic, officials said.
“What the public health community can and must do is provide the very best information,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview. “We make general guideline recommendations, but it’s all local leaders who decide.”
Alert Level
WHO raised the alert to level 5 two days ago after swine flu took root in New York. It was the second elevation this week. The phase 5 warning is “a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent” with little time left for preparation, according to the Web site of WHO, an agency of the United Nations. It’s based on the determination that the disease is established in communities in two countries in the same WHO region.
A Citigroup employee in New York and a World Bank employee in Maryland were preliminarily diagnosed with the flu. One of Barack Obama’s aides who traveled to Mexico as part of last month’s presidential trip, along with his family, showed symptoms.
Batches of seed virus are being developed for potential vaccine production, according to WHO. Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis SA, Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc of London are talking with world health authorities about how to make a vaccine.
Production of shots against seasonal flu will be completed before pandemic flu vaccine production begins, if that decision is made, said Richard Besser, acting head of the CDC.
Drugs Deployed
The CDC deployed antiviral drugs from the U.S. stockpile to 9 of 11 states with confirmed cases, Besser said. Shipments to the two other states should be finished by May 3. The CDC is adding more communications staff and equipment to field 4,000 calls, 2,000 e-mails and up to 8 million visits to its Web site a day, he said.
The U.S. will spend $251 million to buy 13 million courses of antiviral treatments to replenish its stockpile, said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Jose Cordova, the health minister in Mexico, said yesterday the number of H1N1 flu cases confirmed by laboratory tests climbed to 312 from 260, and the death toll remained at 12. Deaths from the virus will probably rise, he said.
WHO’s statistics, which lag behind those reported by national and local agencies, showed confirmed cases in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Spain, the U.K. and New Zealand. Only the U.S. and Mexico have confirmed deaths, according to WHO.
Share | Email | Print | A A A
By Tom Randall
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu reached 14 countries on three continents, killing at a slower rate than past global outbreaks, world health officials said.
Hong Kong, France and Denmark confirmed their first flu cases today. Hong Kong, part of China, declared a public-health emergency. Laboratory tests verified that 365 people in North America, Europe, Asia and New Zealand had the illness, with 10 deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s Web site. New York officials said they suspect thousands of additional cases, so many that the government has stopped testing most.
Geneva-based WHO raised the six-tier pandemic alert to 5 on April 29 and may move soon to the highest level, declaring the world’s first influenza pandemic since 1968. WHO urged countries to make final preparations against the disease, formally called H1N1. While initial cases have been similar to seasonal flu, the new strain may flash across the globe, preying on a population with no natural immunity, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We need to prepare for the long term,” President Barack Obama said today in Washington. “Even if it turns out that the H1N1 is relatively mild on the front end, it could come back in a more virulent form during the actual flu season.”
In Hong Kong, a 25-year-old Mexican man flew into the city yesterday from Shanghai after originally departing from Mexico. The man was prescribed Tamiflu and quarantined. The hotel where he was staying was cordoned off by police today, according to York Chow, the city’s health secretary.
2003 SARS Outbreak
Hong Kong was the center of an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003 that killed 299 there and 774 worldwide.
Evidence suggests “transmission is widespread, and that less severe illness is common,” the Atlanta-based CDC said in a report today. In Mexico, where WHO said nine of 10 confirmed deaths from the virus occurred, “a large number of undetected cases of illness might exist in persons seeking care in primary- care settings or not seeking care at all.”
New York health officials will test for swine flu only in patients with a severe illness or where there may be a cluster of cases, said the New York City health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, at a news conference today. All of the 49 confirmed cases and more than 1,000 likely infected New Yorkers have had mild symptoms similar to those of seasonal flu, he said.
In the U.S., at least 433 schools closed today in 17 states, leaving parents to find other arrangements for 245,449 students, according to the Education Department. Five colleges also closed, the department said in an e-mail.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a U.S. agency based in Atlanta, raised its flu count to 141 cases in 19 states, including a 22-month-old child who died April 27 at a Houston hospital.
Pigs, People, Birds
The new influenza strain, a conglomeration of genes from swine, bird and human viruses, poses the biggest threat of a large-scale flu pandemic since the emergence of the H5N1 strain in 2003 that has killed millions of birds and hundreds of people, said William Schaffner, an influenza expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee, in an interview yesterday.
That disease killed more than half of the people who contracted it, though the virus didn’t spread from person to person and only infected 421 people. The Spanish flu of 1918, another version of bird flu, killed as many as 50 million people in one of the most deadly disease outbreaks known.
‘We Have to Be Careful’
“There are some genetic tests that have shown the virus we’re dealing with right now does not have the factors that we think made the 1918 virus so bad,” said Julie Gerberding, former head of the CDC, in an interview today on ABC News. “But we have to be careful not to overrely on that information, because these flu viruses always evolve.”
Thousands of samples from sick patients are backlogged for testing, WHO said yesterday.
As the number of people sick with flu continued to rise, an outbreak in Spain may show the virus is establishing itself beyond Mexico and the U.S., approaching WHO’s definition of a pandemic. The agency needs evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission outside North America to declare the outbreak a pandemic, officials said.
“What the public health community can and must do is provide the very best information,” Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview. “We make general guideline recommendations, but it’s all local leaders who decide.”
Alert Level
WHO raised the alert to level 5 two days ago after swine flu took root in New York. It was the second elevation this week. The phase 5 warning is “a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent” with little time left for preparation, according to the Web site of WHO, an agency of the United Nations. It’s based on the determination that the disease is established in communities in two countries in the same WHO region.
A Citigroup employee in New York and a World Bank employee in Maryland were preliminarily diagnosed with the flu. One of Barack Obama’s aides who traveled to Mexico as part of last month’s presidential trip, along with his family, showed symptoms.
Batches of seed virus are being developed for potential vaccine production, according to WHO. Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis SA, Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc of London are talking with world health authorities about how to make a vaccine.
Production of shots against seasonal flu will be completed before pandemic flu vaccine production begins, if that decision is made, said Richard Besser, acting head of the CDC.
Drugs Deployed
The CDC deployed antiviral drugs from the U.S. stockpile to 9 of 11 states with confirmed cases, Besser said. Shipments to the two other states should be finished by May 3. The CDC is adding more communications staff and equipment to field 4,000 calls, 2,000 e-mails and up to 8 million visits to its Web site a day, he said.
The U.S. will spend $251 million to buy 13 million courses of antiviral treatments to replenish its stockpile, said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Jose Cordova, the health minister in Mexico, said yesterday the number of H1N1 flu cases confirmed by laboratory tests climbed to 312 from 260, and the death toll remained at 12. Deaths from the virus will probably rise, he said.
WHO’s statistics, which lag behind those reported by national and local agencies, showed confirmed cases in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Spain, the U.K. and New Zealand. Only the U.S. and Mexico have confirmed deaths, according to WHO.
