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U.S. Declares Swine Flu "Emergency"
The U.S. government has declared the swine flu outbreak a public emergency and the Department of Homeland Security is releasing 25% of stockpiled antivirals -- Tamiflu and Relenza -- to U.S. states, prioritizing states where swine flu has already occurred.
If used at first sign of symptoms, those drugs can help -- but health officials are asking people not to hoard their own supply of the drugs.
The CDC says it has gotten lab-confirmed reports of 20 people in the U.S. who have been sickened by swine flu.
Those cases include nine people in New York City, seven people in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas, and one in Ohio.
Eight students at a school in New York have been confirmed to have been infected with swine flu. The school has cancelled classes tomorrow and Tuesday as they monitor the situation,
The World Health Organization (WHO) held a separate news conference this morning in Geneva, Switzerland.
Keiji Fukuda, MD, the WHO's assistant director-general for health security and environment, told reporters that the WHO is seeking more information about the virus and that the global health community is taking the virus "very seriously" but has not yet decided whether to move the pandemic alert from phase 3 to phase 4 (see yesterday's entry for more on the WHO pandemic alert phases).
Fukuda says one of the things the WHO wants to learn is why cases have varied in their severity, and how deeply it's taking root.
Fukuda also noted that although there have been 1,000 illnesses and 71 deaths in Mexico from respiratory illness, it's not clear yet how many of those cases were due to swine flu.
The virus could continue to change, and Fukuda says it's unpredictable whether those changes will make the virus more or less harsh.
If used at first sign of symptoms, those drugs can help -- but health officials are asking people not to hoard their own supply of the drugs.
The CDC says it has gotten lab-confirmed reports of 20 people in the U.S. who have been sickened by swine flu.
Those cases include nine people in New York City, seven people in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas, and one in Ohio.
Eight students at a school in New York have been confirmed to have been infected with swine flu. The school has cancelled classes tomorrow and Tuesday as they monitor the situation,
The World Health Organization (WHO) held a separate news conference this morning in Geneva, Switzerland.
Keiji Fukuda, MD, the WHO's assistant director-general for health security and environment, told reporters that the WHO is seeking more information about the virus and that the global health community is taking the virus "very seriously" but has not yet decided whether to move the pandemic alert from phase 3 to phase 4 (see yesterday's entry for more on the WHO pandemic alert phases).
Fukuda says one of the things the WHO wants to learn is why cases have varied in their severity, and how deeply it's taking root.
Fukuda also noted that although there have been 1,000 illnesses and 71 deaths in Mexico from respiratory illness, it's not clear yet how many of those cases were due to swine flu.
The virus could continue to change, and Fukuda says it's unpredictable whether those changes will make the virus more or less harsh.
4 Comments:
The real danger (A.K.A. a 1918 Pandemic) will come when this swine flu virus combines genetically with the avian (bird) flu one; we will then have a virus that is both highly infective to humans AND highly pathogenic.
My question is what is the usa doing if anything,to help mexico,which seems to be GROUND ZERO?Are we assisting,in anyway with providing tamiflu,etc, if there govt. has no access to these needed supplies?Do we have researchers ,scientists,etc. on the ground there? or does mexico have a sufficent team of experts? thanks for any response, i have heard nothing to answer these questions in the media.
My question is how is the swine influence virus spreading? What is the difference between spanish flu & Swine flu? what are the precautions that we can taken to prevent swine influenza?
what are medicines are available in the market to prevent swine influenza? if we got flu there is any effective treatment for this?
is there any vaccination available for this?
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