CDC says too late to contain U.S. flu outbreak

[cHeroKee]

CDC says too late to contain U.S. flu outbreak (http://www.prisonplanet.com/cdc-says-too-late-to-contain-us-flu-outbreak.html)


Maggie Fox
Reuters (http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/24443479.htm)
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it was too late to contain the swine flu outbreak in the United States.
CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing it was likely too late to try to contain the outbreak, by vaccinating, treating or isolating people.
?There are things that we see that suggest that containment is not very likely,? he said.
He said the U.S. cases and Mexican cases are likely the same virus. ?So far the genetic elements that we have looked at are the same.? But Besser said it was unclear why the virus was causing so many deaths in deaths in Mexico and such mild disease in the United States.

[mirkwood]

Human-to-Human Spread Reported in New Strain of Swine Flu

April 24, 2009
Herald Sun, Australia

Seven people have been diagnosed with a strange and unusual new kind of swine flu in California and Texas, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

http://standeyo.com/NEWS/09_Health/09_Health_pics/090424.swine.flu-truck.jpgPhoto: A man sprays disinfectant on a truckload of live pigs in an effort to control an outbreak of what is believed to be human 'swine flu.' (Frederic J. Brown / AFP - Getty Images)

All seven people have recovered but the virus itself is a never-before-seen mixture of viruses typical among pigs, birds and humans, the CDC said.

"We are likely to find more cases," the CDC's Dr Anne Schuchat said.

"We don't think this is time for major concern around the country."

However, some experts fear this strain, or another strain, could spark a pandemic that could kill millions.

Strange mixture

Unusually, the viruses all appear to carry genes from swine flu, avian flu and human flu viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

"We haven't seen this strain before, but we hadn't been looking as intensively as we have," Dr Schuchat said.

"It's very possible that this is something new that hasn't been happening before."

The CDC reported the new strain of swine flu on Tuesday in two boys from California's two southernmost counties.

Now, five more cases have been seen - all found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza.

None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.

Human-to-human spread

"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Dr Schuchat said.

"That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading.

"We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world."

Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Dr Schuchat said.

Surveillance for and scrutiny of influenza has been stepped up since 2003, when highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza reappeared in Asia.

H5N1 currently only rarely infects people but has killed 257 out of 421 infected in 15 countries since 2003, according to the World Health Organisation.

The influenza strain is an H1N1, the same family as one of the seasonal flu viruses now circulating.

Undetectable at home

Now that the normal influenza season is waning, it may be easier to spot cases of the new swine flu, Dr Schuchat said.

Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalised and all have recovered.

"This isn't something that a person could detect at home," she said.

The new cases appear to have somewhat more vomiting and diarrhea than is usually seen in flu, which mostly causes coughing, fever, sore throat and muscle aches.

The CDC is already preparing a vaccine against the new strain. The agency will issue daily updates at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swin

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25379257-5005961,00.html

[mirkwood]

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04240901/H1N1_Swine_Mexico.html


Human Swine Flu Spread to Texas and Likely Import from Mexico
Recombinomics Commentary 00:55
April 24, 2009

Now, five more cases have been seen -- all found via normal surveillance for seasonal influenza. None of the patients, whose symptoms closely resembled seasonal flu, had any direct contact with pigs.

"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring," Schuchat said. "That's unusual. We don't know yet how widely it is spreading ... We are also working with international partners to understand what is occurring in other parts of the world."

Two of the new cases were among 16-year-olds at the same school in San Antonio "and there's a father-daughter pair in California," Schuchat said. One of the boys whose cases was reported on Tuesday had flown to Dallas but the CDC has found no links to the other Texas cases.

Only one of the seven cases was sick enough to be hospitalized and all have recovered, Schuchat said.

The above comments in Reuters describe several points made in today?s CDC conference call. The additional confirmed cases leave little doubt that the swine flu is transmitting human-to-human and has now been confirmed in three distinct locations (http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04220902/H1N1_CA_Swine_H2H.html) in two states (see updated map (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=p&msa=0&msid=106484775090296685271.0004681a37b713f6b5950&ll=32.639375,-110.390625&spn=15.738151,25.488281&z=5)), confirming sustained transmission (http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04230902/H1N1_CA_Swine_Sustained.html).

The infection of classmates in San Antonio, as well as the father and daughter in California further highlight efficient transmission. The hospitalization of one patient, who had been on a ventilator, raises concerns that infections will produce a wide range of presentations.

The location of the confirmed cases in states that border Mexico, as well as media reports of pneumonia in Canadian travelers returning from Mexico, strongly suggests that the outbreak of influenza in Mexico is also swine flu.

The confirmed cases in the United States likely represent a pandemic of H1N1 swine flu. At this point, most confirmed cases in the United States have been mild and there have been no confirmed fatalities. However, in Mexico there has been a high case fatality rate (http://www.recombinomics.com/News/04230901/SRI_Mexico_Alert.html) among young adults, 25-44, with atypical pneumonia, which has similarities with the 1918 pandemic.

Moreover, the 1918 pandemic was composed of eight gene segments representing recombination between H1N1 seasonal flu and H1N1 swine flu.

An efficiently transmitted swine flu can lead to co-infection with H1N1 seasonal flu. Oseltamivir resistance (H274Y) has become fixed in H1N1 seasonal flu, raising concerns that recombination or reassortment will lead to Tamiflu resistance in the swine flu, which is already resistant to amantadine and rimantadine. Moreover, the existing trivalent seasonal flu vaccine will likely offer little protection.

The spread of swine flu in the United States, and likely import from Mexico, creates a major cause for concern.

[mirkwood]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=azAqR4.k2qEY&refer=home

Swine Flu Probe Widens as Mexico Finds Lung Illness

By Jason Gale
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- An urgent probe into an unusual flu outbreak that?s infected seven people in the U.S. was widened after Mexico sought assistance to investigate more than 130 cases of severe respiratory disease that may be related.
Authorities in Mexico asked the Public Health Agency of Canada (http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/index-eng.php) to help identify the cause of the lung illness linked to 20 deaths, including two in the state of Baja California Norte, which borders California. The Mexican cases include five health- care workers, the Ottawa-based agency said in an e-mail today.
Tests in Mexico found patients were infected with H1N1 and type-B influenza strains and the parainfluenza (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/respiratory/hpivfeat.htm) virus, the agency said. In the U.S., doctors discovered a new strain of H1N1 swine influenza (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/) in patients in San Diego County and Imperial County, California, and in San Antonio, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said today.
?It will be critical to determine whether or not the strains of H1N1 isolated from patients in Mexico are also swine flu,? Donald Low (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Donald+Low&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1), an infectious diseases specialist at Toronto?s Mount Sinai Hospital, told the Canadian Press (http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hKrwlM2yh12pNDe6_7gtuplU31Fw).
Canada?s National Microbiology Lab received 51 specimens from Mexico yesterday and will be testing them for a range of pathogens, the public health agency said.
Thirteen fatal cases of severe respiratory illness were reported in Mexico City, four in San Luis Potosi, a city north of the capital, and another in Oaxaca city in the south. Most cases occurred in southern and central Mexico in previously healthy adults aged 25 to 44 years old.
Fever, Headache
Symptoms include high fever, headache, eye pain, shortness of breath and extreme fatigue with rapid progression of symptoms to severe respiratory distress in about five days, the Canadian agency said. A ?high proportion? of cases require mechanical respirators, it said.
In contrast, the four males and three females diagnosed with swine flu in the U.S. have had mild flu-like symptoms. The patients, aged 9 to 54 years, began feeling unwell from March 28 to April 19. All have recovered and only one was hospitalized briefly, according to the CDC.
Preliminary analyses of the virus indicate it contains four different gene components representing both North American swine and avian influenza, human flu and a European/Asian swine flu.
?We have determined that this virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human,? the CDC said in a statement (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/investigation.htm) on its Web site. ?We have not determined how easily the virus spreads between people.?
Swine influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type-A influenza (http://www.who.int/csr/disease/influenza/en/index.html) that regularly causes outbreaks among the animals, according to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/swine/). Swine flu doesn?t normally infect people, though human infections do occur and cases of human-to- human spread of swine flu viruses have been documented.
?Reassortment? Risk
Infection in pigs is regarded as especially problematic because of the risk of ?reassortment? to produce a new virus, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a statement (http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/health_content/episu/090423_av_ah_2.aspx). There is even a risk of a pandemic strain either in pigs or in a person infected with both a human and pig strain, the center said yesterday.
?The infection of humans with a novel influenza A virus infection of animal origins as has happened here is of concern because of the risk, albeit small, that this could represent the appearance of viruses with pandemic potential,? the ECDC said.
Global flu contagions start when a novel influenza type-A virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and begins spreading. Experts believe that the so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people.

[Earthling]

Guess Signseeker and I should take Texas & California off our list of possible places to vacation this summer . . . . :yikes:

[signseeker]

No kidding. :001_sdrool:

[mirkwood]

Try Alaska, I hear the BBQ there is great.

[BackBlast]

?There are things that we see that suggest that containment is not very likely,? he said.


Yeah, like, the complete inability to control one's own borders. Makes "containment" kinda hopeless.

[DavidA]

Guess Signseeker and I should take Texas & California off our list of possible places to vacation this summer
From what I hear, you might want to take Kansas of your list too.;)

[signseeker]

Yeah, I'm getting the whole "let's stay home" feeling this year. There's daytrips around here we can do... This Is The Place, Logan Canyon, Cantalope Island... plus we're going to really try to go gangbusters on the garden and canning. I'm feeling good about that.

[Earthling]

I still want to go somewhere- while we still can. I just can't figure out where?

[signseeker]

Stupor of thought and all...