Potemkin
08-05-2009, 01:02 PM
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/kuwaitnews/pagesdetails.asp?nid=35535&ccid=11
WHO HOLDS 2 BILLION PEOPLE COULD CATCH H1N1; Alarm on Tamiflu-resistant strain
WASHINGTON, Aug 4, (Agencies): Health officials raised the alarm about a strain of swine flu that is resistant to the Tamiflu treatment as the virus claimed more lives on Tuesday, with Vietnam reporting its first fatal case. India and South Africa both reported their first deadly cases of the A(H1N1) virus late Monday. Maria Teresa Cerqueira, head of the Pan-American Health Organization office in La Jolla, California, said a Tamiflu-resistant mutation of A(H1N1) had been found around the US-Mexico border in El Paso and close to McAllen, Texas. Experts had gathered in La Jolla, California, on Monday to discuss responses to the outbreak, and warned that resistant strains were likely emerging because of overuse of antivirals like Tamiflu. “In the United States Tamiflu is sold with a prescription, but in Mexico and Canada it is sold freely and taken at the first sneeze. Then, when it is really needed, it doesn’t work,” said Cerqueira late Monday. Cases of A(H1N1) that were resistant to the anti-viral medicine have now been found in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong and Japan.
In Vietnam, officials reported the country’s first swine flu fatality after a 29-year-old woman died from the disease in the southern coastal province of Khanh Hoa. Nearly 1,000 people have been reported infected in Vietnam and about 500 of those are receiving hospital treatment, according to the health ministry. In South Africa, authorities said a 22-year-old student at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town had died after contracting the virus, while in India a 14-year-old girl in the western city of Pune died. With the world’s highest number of HIV/AIDS-affected people — nearly 19 percent of a 49-million-person population — South Africa is considered particularly at risk because people with compromised immunity are more likely to fall prey to the disease. South Africa’s swine flu caseload has increased fourfold since the country’s first case was reported on June 14. In India, the government said that 2,479 people had been tested for swine flu so far out of whom 558 had tested positive for H1N1. Some health officials in India have suggested a combination of climatic and meteorological factors — such as high temperatures and humidity — and social factors are likely to lower the risk of transmission there. The virus continued to disrupt plans for public events.
The Russian state health agency warned football fans to stay away from the national team’s World Cup qualifying tie with Wales in Cardiff on Sept 9. “This would be an extremely unnecessary and inappropriate undertaking at a time of a flu epidemic,” the head of Russia’s state health agency Gennady Onishchenko said, according to local news agencies. Onishchenko expressed fears that “the expressions of emotion on the part of football fans involving intense shouting” could lead to the airborne transmission of the flu virus. Russia has to-date been relatively unscathed by the pandemic, with just 55 confirmed cases. The World Health Organisation stuck on Tuesday to its statement that about two billion people could catch H1N1 influenza by the time the flu pandemic ends. But the estimate comes with a big health warning: no one knows how many people so far have caught the new strain, and the final number will never be known as many cases are so mild they may go unnoticed.
“By the end of a pandemic, anywhere between 15-45 percent of a population will have been infected by the new pandemic virus,” WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said in a statement. “Thirty percent is a midpoint estimate and 30 percent of the world’s population is 2 billion.” But she added: “We must remember however, that attempts to estimate infection rates can only be very rough.” Early in the outbreak, which was first detected in April, Dr Keiji Fukuda, acting Assistant Director-General of the UN agency, fuelled accusations the WHO was creating panic about the disease when he used the two billion figure. But the WHO, which raised its global flu alert to the highest level on June 11, declaring a worldwide pandemic, has since said the strain is already spreading much faster than previous flu pandemics. At the same time, because most victims suffer only mild symptoms, it has told countries they no longer need to try to report each case, but concentrate on monitoring suspicious concentrations of the disease and tracking deaths.
Bhatiasevi earlier told a briefing the WHO was coordinating a network of independent institutions trying to project the total number of cases. Because no one currently has such an estimate, it is not possible to state the H1N1 mortality rate. The WHO’s latest update on July 27 said a total of 816 people had died from H1N1, while the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases, including deaths, was 134,503 — a figure well below the likely real total of infections which may already be in the millions, according to health experts. As the northern hemisphere autumn approaches, and with it the onset of seasonal flu, the WHO is working with drug companies to ensure vaccines to cope both with H1N1 and seasonal flu will be available. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the agency hoped to give an update on its vaccine plans later this week. Leading flu vaccine makers include Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis , Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline and Solvay.
WHO HOLDS 2 BILLION PEOPLE COULD CATCH H1N1; Alarm on Tamiflu-resistant strain
WASHINGTON, Aug 4, (Agencies): Health officials raised the alarm about a strain of swine flu that is resistant to the Tamiflu treatment as the virus claimed more lives on Tuesday, with Vietnam reporting its first fatal case. India and South Africa both reported their first deadly cases of the A(H1N1) virus late Monday. Maria Teresa Cerqueira, head of the Pan-American Health Organization office in La Jolla, California, said a Tamiflu-resistant mutation of A(H1N1) had been found around the US-Mexico border in El Paso and close to McAllen, Texas. Experts had gathered in La Jolla, California, on Monday to discuss responses to the outbreak, and warned that resistant strains were likely emerging because of overuse of antivirals like Tamiflu. “In the United States Tamiflu is sold with a prescription, but in Mexico and Canada it is sold freely and taken at the first sneeze. Then, when it is really needed, it doesn’t work,” said Cerqueira late Monday. Cases of A(H1N1) that were resistant to the anti-viral medicine have now been found in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong and Japan.
In Vietnam, officials reported the country’s first swine flu fatality after a 29-year-old woman died from the disease in the southern coastal province of Khanh Hoa. Nearly 1,000 people have been reported infected in Vietnam and about 500 of those are receiving hospital treatment, according to the health ministry. In South Africa, authorities said a 22-year-old student at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town had died after contracting the virus, while in India a 14-year-old girl in the western city of Pune died. With the world’s highest number of HIV/AIDS-affected people — nearly 19 percent of a 49-million-person population — South Africa is considered particularly at risk because people with compromised immunity are more likely to fall prey to the disease. South Africa’s swine flu caseload has increased fourfold since the country’s first case was reported on June 14. In India, the government said that 2,479 people had been tested for swine flu so far out of whom 558 had tested positive for H1N1. Some health officials in India have suggested a combination of climatic and meteorological factors — such as high temperatures and humidity — and social factors are likely to lower the risk of transmission there. The virus continued to disrupt plans for public events.
The Russian state health agency warned football fans to stay away from the national team’s World Cup qualifying tie with Wales in Cardiff on Sept 9. “This would be an extremely unnecessary and inappropriate undertaking at a time of a flu epidemic,” the head of Russia’s state health agency Gennady Onishchenko said, according to local news agencies. Onishchenko expressed fears that “the expressions of emotion on the part of football fans involving intense shouting” could lead to the airborne transmission of the flu virus. Russia has to-date been relatively unscathed by the pandemic, with just 55 confirmed cases. The World Health Organisation stuck on Tuesday to its statement that about two billion people could catch H1N1 influenza by the time the flu pandemic ends. But the estimate comes with a big health warning: no one knows how many people so far have caught the new strain, and the final number will never be known as many cases are so mild they may go unnoticed.
“By the end of a pandemic, anywhere between 15-45 percent of a population will have been infected by the new pandemic virus,” WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said in a statement. “Thirty percent is a midpoint estimate and 30 percent of the world’s population is 2 billion.” But she added: “We must remember however, that attempts to estimate infection rates can only be very rough.” Early in the outbreak, which was first detected in April, Dr Keiji Fukuda, acting Assistant Director-General of the UN agency, fuelled accusations the WHO was creating panic about the disease when he used the two billion figure. But the WHO, which raised its global flu alert to the highest level on June 11, declaring a worldwide pandemic, has since said the strain is already spreading much faster than previous flu pandemics. At the same time, because most victims suffer only mild symptoms, it has told countries they no longer need to try to report each case, but concentrate on monitoring suspicious concentrations of the disease and tracking deaths.
Bhatiasevi earlier told a briefing the WHO was coordinating a network of independent institutions trying to project the total number of cases. Because no one currently has such an estimate, it is not possible to state the H1N1 mortality rate. The WHO’s latest update on July 27 said a total of 816 people had died from H1N1, while the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases, including deaths, was 134,503 — a figure well below the likely real total of infections which may already be in the millions, according to health experts. As the northern hemisphere autumn approaches, and with it the onset of seasonal flu, the WHO is working with drug companies to ensure vaccines to cope both with H1N1 and seasonal flu will be available. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said the agency hoped to give an update on its vaccine plans later this week. Leading flu vaccine makers include Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis , Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline and Solvay.