Reasonable Rascal
04-26-09, 15:52
Claim questionable as true confirmation requires more than a matching of symptoms with a rapid assay test. It may be an instance of presumed "swine" flu infection that there was a rush to hit the press with.
RR
Six ‘mild’ cases of swine flu confirmed in Nova Scotia, B.C.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Health/Four+mild+swine+cases+Canada/1535987/story.html
By Tiffany Crawford, Canwest News Service and ReutersApril 26, 2009 4:24 PM
Health officials in Nova Scotia and British Columbia are reporting “mild” cases of swine flu, the first confirmed Canadian cases since an outbreak of the illness began in Mexico several days ago.
As governments around the world rushed on Sunday to check the spread of a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected about 20 people in the United States, Nova Scotia health officials said two of the four victims in that province, all students at the same private school, recently visited Mexico.
Two case were also confirmed in British Columbia.
None of the people in Canada has been hospitalized.
“We do have four confirmed cases of swine flu now in Nova Scotia,” said Dr. Robert Strang, chief public health officer for the province. “At this point, we are not seeing severe cases like we are in Mexico.”
He said authorities were working to contain the virus on the campus.
Joe Seagram, the headmaster of the private school in Windsor, N.S., said 21 people were in isolation, 17 of them students and four staff. They are being isolated for seven days as a precaution. In all, 28 people took part in the trip.
“All those who had the flu are recovering either at home or in the dormitory,” said Strang.
Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed, medical officer of health for the Capital District Health Authority in Nova Scotia, said health officials are closely monitoring the other students at the school.
“One of the challenges with this illness is that it has been so mild that many of the students can’t really tell how sick they are,” she said, adding that most of the children just had a cough and fatigue. There may be many more children who had the virus and didn’t report they were sick because they felt fine, she said.
While some people at the school were wearing face masks over the weekend, Strang said wearing protective covering had not been recommended by health authorities.
Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a spokeswoman for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, said the two people with mild cases of swine flu were in the greater Vancouver area and both people had links to someone who had travelled to Mexico.
“This is not scary monsters,” she said at a news conference in Vancouver. “We had a surveillance system on high alert to be able to detect these cases and we have.”
Doctors aren’t sure why the illness has been so deadly in Mexico and mild in other countries, said Skowronski.
“The six confirmed cases in Canada are different from what we are seeing in Mexico,” she said. “We do expect more cases.”
While all the deaths so far have been in Mexico, the flu is spreading in the United States, and possible infections popped up as far afield as Europe and New Zealand.
About two-thirds of the 1,300 people in Mexico who were suspected of having swine flu were given a clean bill of health and sent home from the hospital, according to President Felipe Calderon.
He said more than 900 people had been declared healthy and nearly 400 others with flu-like symptoms were in hospitals being checked.
Calderon reassured Mexicans on Sunday that the flu is curable with drugs and said Mexico has ample stocks of antiviral medicine.
“It’s very important to act fast and take this seriously, but it’s also very important to stay calm, co-operate with authorities and inform them of any cases that arise,” he said during a meeting of health officials.
Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday that they expected fatalities from swine flu in the United States.
However, the CDC’s acting director, Dr. Richard Besser, told a White House briefing that “if you do not have symptoms you should not get tested” by a doctor.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed on Sunday that eight schoolchildren there had contracted virus, although the cases were mild and it did not appear to be spreading rapidly to the general population. Another 12 cases have been confirmed in California, Kansas, Ohio and Texas.
In New Zealand, 10 students from a school party that had been in Mexico were being tested after showing flu-like symptoms.
The World Health Organization has declared the flu, of a type never seen before, a “public health emergency of international concern” and says it could become a pandemic, or a global outbreak of serious disease.
A 1968 “Hong Kong” flu pandemic killed about one million people globally.
Mexico City, one of the world’s biggest cities, practically ground to a halt on Sunday with restaurants, cinemas and churches closing their doors and millions staying at home.
Worshippers were told to follow Sunday church services on television and some residents abandoned the capital, a rambling, chaotic city of some 20 million people.
Michelle Geronis, 22, a film student, took a bus to be with her family in the central state of Aguascalientes.
“My parents heard the news and said, ’You know what? You’d better get here,’” she said.
In Spain, doctors checked three people who had returned from visiting Mexico and reported flu-like symptoms.
The new flu strain, a mixture of various swine, bird and human viruses, poses the biggest risk of a large-scale pandemic since avian flu surfaced in 1997, killing several hundred people.
WHO director general Dr. Margaret Chan urged greater worldwide surveillance for any unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness.
Although it is called “swine flu” there is no evidence that any of the cases stemmed from contact with pigs, said Liz Wagstrom, a veterinarian who works on public health issues for the U.S. National Pork Board.
New flu strains can spread quickly because no one has natural immunity to them and a vaccine takes months to develop.
Authorities across Asia, who have had to grapple with deadly viruses like H5N1 bird flu and SARS in recent years, snapped into action. At airports and other border checkpoints in Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, officials screened travellers for any flu-like symptoms.
Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus.
The symptoms of swine flu in people can be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza infection and include fever, cough, headache, general aches, fatigue and other symptoms.
Some people with swine flu have also reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada
RR
Six ‘mild’ cases of swine flu confirmed in Nova Scotia, B.C.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Health/Four+mild+swine+cases+Canada/1535987/story.html
By Tiffany Crawford, Canwest News Service and ReutersApril 26, 2009 4:24 PM
Health officials in Nova Scotia and British Columbia are reporting “mild” cases of swine flu, the first confirmed Canadian cases since an outbreak of the illness began in Mexico several days ago.
As governments around the world rushed on Sunday to check the spread of a new type of swine flu that has killed up to 81 people in Mexico and infected about 20 people in the United States, Nova Scotia health officials said two of the four victims in that province, all students at the same private school, recently visited Mexico.
Two case were also confirmed in British Columbia.
None of the people in Canada has been hospitalized.
“We do have four confirmed cases of swine flu now in Nova Scotia,” said Dr. Robert Strang, chief public health officer for the province. “At this point, we are not seeing severe cases like we are in Mexico.”
He said authorities were working to contain the virus on the campus.
Joe Seagram, the headmaster of the private school in Windsor, N.S., said 21 people were in isolation, 17 of them students and four staff. They are being isolated for seven days as a precaution. In all, 28 people took part in the trip.
“All those who had the flu are recovering either at home or in the dormitory,” said Strang.
Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed, medical officer of health for the Capital District Health Authority in Nova Scotia, said health officials are closely monitoring the other students at the school.
“One of the challenges with this illness is that it has been so mild that many of the students can’t really tell how sick they are,” she said, adding that most of the children just had a cough and fatigue. There may be many more children who had the virus and didn’t report they were sick because they felt fine, she said.
While some people at the school were wearing face masks over the weekend, Strang said wearing protective covering had not been recommended by health authorities.
Dr. Danuta Skowronski, a spokeswoman for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, said the two people with mild cases of swine flu were in the greater Vancouver area and both people had links to someone who had travelled to Mexico.
“This is not scary monsters,” she said at a news conference in Vancouver. “We had a surveillance system on high alert to be able to detect these cases and we have.”
Doctors aren’t sure why the illness has been so deadly in Mexico and mild in other countries, said Skowronski.
“The six confirmed cases in Canada are different from what we are seeing in Mexico,” she said. “We do expect more cases.”
While all the deaths so far have been in Mexico, the flu is spreading in the United States, and possible infections popped up as far afield as Europe and New Zealand.
About two-thirds of the 1,300 people in Mexico who were suspected of having swine flu were given a clean bill of health and sent home from the hospital, according to President Felipe Calderon.
He said more than 900 people had been declared healthy and nearly 400 others with flu-like symptoms were in hospitals being checked.
Calderon reassured Mexicans on Sunday that the flu is curable with drugs and said Mexico has ample stocks of antiviral medicine.
“It’s very important to act fast and take this seriously, but it’s also very important to stay calm, co-operate with authorities and inform them of any cases that arise,” he said during a meeting of health officials.
Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday that they expected fatalities from swine flu in the United States.
However, the CDC’s acting director, Dr. Richard Besser, told a White House briefing that “if you do not have symptoms you should not get tested” by a doctor.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed on Sunday that eight schoolchildren there had contracted virus, although the cases were mild and it did not appear to be spreading rapidly to the general population. Another 12 cases have been confirmed in California, Kansas, Ohio and Texas.
In New Zealand, 10 students from a school party that had been in Mexico were being tested after showing flu-like symptoms.
The World Health Organization has declared the flu, of a type never seen before, a “public health emergency of international concern” and says it could become a pandemic, or a global outbreak of serious disease.
A 1968 “Hong Kong” flu pandemic killed about one million people globally.
Mexico City, one of the world’s biggest cities, practically ground to a halt on Sunday with restaurants, cinemas and churches closing their doors and millions staying at home.
Worshippers were told to follow Sunday church services on television and some residents abandoned the capital, a rambling, chaotic city of some 20 million people.
Michelle Geronis, 22, a film student, took a bus to be with her family in the central state of Aguascalientes.
“My parents heard the news and said, ’You know what? You’d better get here,’” she said.
In Spain, doctors checked three people who had returned from visiting Mexico and reported flu-like symptoms.
The new flu strain, a mixture of various swine, bird and human viruses, poses the biggest risk of a large-scale pandemic since avian flu surfaced in 1997, killing several hundred people.
WHO director general Dr. Margaret Chan urged greater worldwide surveillance for any unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness.
Although it is called “swine flu” there is no evidence that any of the cases stemmed from contact with pigs, said Liz Wagstrom, a veterinarian who works on public health issues for the U.S. National Pork Board.
New flu strains can spread quickly because no one has natural immunity to them and a vaccine takes months to develop.
Authorities across Asia, who have had to grapple with deadly viruses like H5N1 bird flu and SARS in recent years, snapped into action. At airports and other border checkpoints in Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, officials screened travellers for any flu-like symptoms.
Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus.
The symptoms of swine flu in people can be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza infection and include fever, cough, headache, general aches, fatigue and other symptoms.
Some people with swine flu have also reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
Source: Public Health Agency of Canada