Swine Flu & Other Pandemics

Hundreds in Ireland Fall Ill After Having Swine Flu Hab

December 14, 2009

Herald.ie - Swine flu vaccine has caused adverse reactions in 619 people to date, varying from seizures and anaphylactic shock to fainting and vomiting.

Two more people have died from the flu but the number of people falling ill with the virus has halved in the past week.

More than 400,000 vaccinations against swine flu have been carried out, according to the latest figures from the Irish Medicines Board, which details the reported side effects for both forms of the vaccines -- Pandemrix and Celvapan.

Of the 619 people who showed side effects to the vaccine, 52 had an allergic reaction and three of these went into anaphylactic shock.

Altogether 210 children reacted adversely to the vaccine, 15 with an allergic reaction, and some of the children needed hospital treatment as a result.

Forty pregnant women reported side effects, four of them allergic; and one woman, with a history of miscarriage, lost her baby.

Six people had seizures, two people reported facial palsy, and the IMB was made aware of the death of one patient 10 days after vaccination, but says the patient had an underlying condition and there was no evidence of a link between the vaccine and the patient's death.

"Most people receiving the vaccine have serious and/or chronic underlying medical conditions which put them at greater risk of developing serious complications of swine flu," says the board, adding "this is why it is important for these people to be vaccinated as a priority."

Generally the reactions included flu-like illness, head-ache, dizziness and fainting, pins and needles, transient weakness of the vaccinated limb, and nausea and vomiting.

The latest people to die from swine flu were two men with underlying illnesses, one from the east and the other from the south of the country, bringing the total deaths to 20.

Health officials say there has been a marked decline in the spread of the virus in the past week, down to 5,500 new cases compared to 10,500 the previous week.

Flu Pandemic Could Be Mild, But Vaccinations Are Still Encouraged

December 8, 2009

Washington Post - With the second wave of H1N1 infections having crested in the United States, leading epidemiologists are predicting that the pandemic could end up ranking as the mildest since modern medicine began documenting influenza outbreaks.

Experts warn that the flu is notoriously unpredictable, but several recent analyses, including one released late Monday, indicate that the death toll is likely to be far lower than the number of fatalities caused by past pandemics.

The predictions are being met with a mix of skepticism, relief and trepidation: Public health officials worry that people may become complacent about getting vaccinated, which could prove disastrous if a third wave of infections swells later this winter or the virus mutates into a more dangerous form.

"I think it is very likely to be the mildest pandemic on record," said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiology professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who led a federally funded analysis with researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and elsewhere published online Monday by the journal PLoS Medicine.

The analysis, based on data collected in New York City and Milwaukee, indicates that the virus may directly cause 6,000 to 45,000 deaths by the end of the winter, with the final toll probably falling between 10,000 and 15,000, Lipsitch said. In the worst-case scenario, the swine flu pandemic would kill no more than about 60,000 people, his new analysis concluded.

Several experts noted that even if the overall death toll does end up being relatively low, the pandemic already has taken an unusually high number of children and young adults.

"We've had hundreds of deaths among children, which is a tragedy any way you look at it," said Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

A typical flu season is associated with an average of 36,000 deaths in the United States, and an estimate released in August by a presidential advisory panel that Lipsitch was involved in predicted that the 2009 H1N1 virus could kill 30,000 to 90,000 in this country.

"Those were the best estimates we could make at the time based on the data available at the time," he said. "We now have much better data to make estimates from."

When the presidential council's estimate was made, experts thought the virus could make up to 30 percent of the population sick. So far, the virus appears to be causing symptoms in a much smaller proportion, perhaps 15 percent, Lipsitch said.

The new analysis also indicates that the pandemic's "symptomatic case-fatality ratio" -- the percentage of those who become ill and die -- has been far lower than the previous three pandemics.

"If things continue as they've gone so far, this could turn out to be quite mild," said Ira M. Longini Jr., a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington in Seattle who has calculated a similarly low case-fatality rate based on CDC data.

Several experts praised the new analysis as the most sophisticated and therefore reliable to date.

"From what we know now, it would appear this is the mildest, both compared to 1968 and 1957 and certainly 1918," said Neal M. Ferguson, an epidemiologist at Imperial College in London who advises the World Health Organization and the Health and Human Services Department. The pattern appears to be consistent in other developed countries, such as Britain, he noted.

Others, however, cautioned that previous pandemics have produced deadly late-winter waves, which could occur in this case. More older people could also become infected, which could also increase the toll.

"I would hold my horses until we are through the winter," said Lone Simonsen, a research professor at George Washington University.

To encourage Americans to continue to get vaccinated, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new multimedia advertising campaign Monday aimed at countering complacency. After a slow start, more than 80 million doses of vaccine are now available, she said.

"We have to seize this opportunity as disease is going down slightly to remind folks how important this is," she said.

While agreeing that people should continue to be inoculated, Lipsitch and others said they doubt that a major increase in deaths would occur in a third wave without some significant shift in the virus.

"There's a faint possibility," Ferguson said. "But I don't think there will be a major change."

One major reason for the relatively low death toll is that the elderly have largely been unaffected, apparently because many have some immunity against the disease. The 36,000 deaths blamed on a typical flu season include many that are caused by heart attacks, strokes and other complications associated with the flu among seniors and people with other health problems. About 9,000 deaths are directly caused by the influenza virus during a typical flu season.

"Sometimes Mother Nature throws us a break," said Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan.

But other factors may also be playing a role, including the virus being less likely to cause illness than viruses involved in previous pandemics, as well as better medical care available than in previous decades, such as antiviral drugs and more sophisticated intensive-care techniques.

"In 1918, it was really prehistoric medical care," Markel said. "In 1957, we really didn't have intensive care. In 1968, we were starting to have it, but it was nothing like we have today."

Nonetheless, Lipsitch and others stressed that the multibillion-dollar vaccination campaign and other intense responses were appropriate, given the uncertainty of what the nation and world was facing.

"We got lucky," Lipsitch said. "But if we didn't have a plan in place and we had 60,000 or 70,000 deaths, people would have been justifiably outraged."

Access to H1N1 Vaccine Easing as Interest in Shot Wanes

December 1, 2009

Fox News - With 66 million doses of H1N1 vaccine now available in the U.S., municipalities have begun easing restrictions to access, and federal officials believe the vaccine may soon be available to all.

Starting Tuesday, the Tennessee counties of Memphis and Shelby will begin administering H1N1 vaccine to everyone who wants it, joining several other municipalities across the country that have already opened access or are considering doing so.

“I get the sense that more areas are starting to vaccinate outside the priority groups,” said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Skinner said federal officials have been clear in their desire to have priority groups, such as pregnant women and children, vaccinated first.

"But federal guidelines also give states the flexibility to vaccinate outside the priority groups if the states feel that’s the best thing to do given the issues surrounding supply and demand at the local level," Skinner said.

States are in the best position to make the call to open the vaccine to everyone, Skinner said, adding that more states will be vaccinating outside the priority groups in the coming weeks and months as more of it becomes available.

“There will come a time when everyone will have access to it,” he said.

The H1N1 vaccine became available in the U.S. in early October, about a month after schools and colleges opened. By mid-month, 14 million doses of the vaccine were available, about half of what the U.S. expected to have received from manufacturers.

A top Dallas County (Texas) health official on Saturday called for distribution of the H1N1 vaccine to everyone, as more vaccine appears to be headed toward North Texas pharmacies.

The move comes as interest in obtaining the shot by high-risk groups appears to be waning.

Zachary Thompson, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, told the Dallas Morning News he was concerned that the vaccine supply already shared with local pharmacies had not found enough takers among the targeted high-risk groups.

A spot check of local pharmacies by The Dallas Morning News last week found that some stores still had hundreds of shots available for people in high-risk groups.

In addition to local pharmacies, chain drugstores including Walgreens and CVS are offering the vaccines in Dallas County.

Walgreens, which is distributing vaccine in 25-30 states, is complying with federal guidelines and immunizing only high-risk groups against the virus, said spokesman Jim Cohn. He said the company would be willing to offer the vaccinations to everyone if that were the directive of the municipal health department.

“We work on a state-by-state and county-by-county basis,” he said. “In some cases, we’re sitting and waiting for the vaccine. In other cases, the (municipal) government came to us early on and asked us to be part of the supply chain so that the vaccine could be distributed as efficiently as possible. We would like to be able to receive and offer vaccine in all 50 states and it is becoming more widely available as time goes on.”

Despite reports of an H1N1 virus mutation in Norway, a federal health official said Tuesday that the H1N1 vaccine is well-matched and still a person’s best defense against the virus.

“We have not seen clusters of resistance,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The cases reported are interesting, but they are not of concern.”

Frieden said the H1N1 virus is gradually decreasing in the United States, but is still widespread in 32 states and people should remain vigilant.

"Although the flu is going down," Frieden said, "it’s far from gone. … And flu season lasts until May so there’s still a lot of time to see what will happen."

The CDC polled 12 health experts who were split as to whether the country will see another surge of H1N1 this flu season.

"One (expert) said flip a coin," Frieden said. "We don’t know what the future will hold. ... What we do know is that the vaccine is the very best way to protect yourself."

WHO Consistently Downplaying Dangers of Mutated Flu Strains

November 30, 2009

Prevent Disease - When it comes to the flu, the track record of experts who oppose the views of the World Health Organization (WHO) have been consistently correct in their facts and assertions. Simply put, if the WHO makes a recommendation, it must be opposed to arrive at the truth of the matter. The recent WHO announcements on flu mutations are an excellent example of this phenomenon.

Most people have figured out by now that we can trust the WHO as much as we can trust a baby to not spill milk. They have consistently used scientific fraud to conduct their policies on the H1N1 pandemic. Now, they are consistently downplaying what appears to be a virulent mutated or recombined H1N1 strain at least ten times the lethality of the swine flu observed earlier this year...

In late August, FOX News reported that doctors had announced a severe form of the H1N1 virus that goes straight to the lungs, causing severe illness in otherwise healthy young people and requiring expensive hospital treatment.

There is growing concern over the discovery of mutated strains of the H1N1 virus.

“This mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue,” said a statement from the French Health Surveillance Institute.

Last week, the WHO tried to dampen fears about mutations seen in the swine flu virus in several countries, noting that both mutations had been found in very few people.

A change that created Tamiflu resistance has been found in about 75 people around the world, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, chief flu adviser to the WHO’s director general. Dr. Fukuda also said WHO scientists were “not sure” of the level of threat posed by a separate mutation that helps the virus reach the lungs. It has been found in Norway, Ukraine, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico and the United States, in both serious and mild cases.

Even though a more lethal version of the virus has infected almost 2 million people and left more than 400 dead in the Ukraine, Dr. Fukuda insists that:

"Experts still need to see whether the mutation -- whose shorthand name in virology is D222G or D225G -- is becoming more common, and how often it leads to severe disease."

One isolate from Ukraine with the mutation had changed so that swine flu vaccine probably would not protect against it well, Britain’s national medical laboratory reported last Friday.

Virologist Timothy Lee stated:

"There is currently little debate among infectious disease specialists that we're dealing with a recombined strain with a much higher CFR [case fatality rate] than standard H1N1"...