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Comment by truth on April 24, 2009 at 5:01pm

WHO calls emergency meeting on swine flu

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Comment by TheLasersShadow on April 24, 2009 at 12:55pm

lol mask shopping you shoulda done that months ago i have 4 for each person in my house and twice as many filters. I have Mil spec suits as well .... "always be prepared"

Comment by truth on April 24, 2009 at 12:50pm

ATLANTA - Health officials are investigating a never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses and which has infected seven people in California and Texas. All the victims recovered, but the cases are a growing medical mystery because it's unclear how they caught the virus.



Swine flu cases up to 7; officials expand probe
Associated Press
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer - Thu Apr 23, 4:10 PM PDT


None of the seven people were in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, health officials said it's not a cause for public alarm: The five in California and two in Texas have all recovered, and testing indicates some mainstream antiviral medications seem to work against the virus.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe it can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus.

The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven confirmed cases, who all became ill between late March and mid-April.

Because of intensive searching, it's likely health officials will find additional cases, said Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains human virus, avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.

Scientists keep a close eye on flu viruses that emerge from pigs. The animals are considered particularly susceptible to both avian and human viruses and a likely place where the kind of genetic reassortment can take place that might lead to a new form of pandemic flu, said Dr. John Treanor, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The virus may be something completely new, or it may have been around for a while but was only detected now because of improved lab testing and disease surveillance, CDC officials said.

The virus was first detected in two children in southern California — a 10-year-old boy in San Diego County and a 9-year-old girl in neighboring Imperial County.

The cases were detected under unusual circumstances. One was seen at a Navy clinic that participates in a specialized disease detection network, and the other was caught through a specialized surveillance system set up in border communities, CDC officials said.

On Thursday, investigators said they had discovered five more cases. That includes a father and his teenage daughter in San Diego County, a 41-year-old woman in Imperial County (the only person hospitalized), and two 16-year-old boys who are friends and live in Guadalupe County, Texas, near San Antonio.

The Texas cases are especially puzzling. One of the California cases — the 10-year-old boy — traveled to Texas early this month, but that was to Dallas, about 270 miles northeast of San Antonio. He did not travel to the San Antonio area, Schuchat said.

The two 16-year-olds had not traveled recently, Texas health officials said.

The swine flu's symptoms are like those of the regular flu, mostly involving fever, cough and sore throat, though some of the seven also experienced vomiting and diarrhea.

CDC are not calling it an outbreak, a term that suggests ongoing illnesses. It's not known if anyone is getting sick from the virus right now, CDC officials said.

It's also not known if the seasonal flu vaccine that Americans got last fall and early this year protects against this type of virus. People should wash their hands and take other customary precautions, CDC officials said.

U.S. health officials are consulting with Mexican and Canadian health officials, and the CDC is beginning to receive samples from Mexico for testing, a CDC spokesman said. The ethnicity of the seven confirmed cases was not disclosed.

Comment by truth on April 24, 2009 at 12:49pm

In California and Texas, 5 New Swine Flu Cases

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 24, 2009

Government scientists have identified five more people who have been infected with swine flu, apparently confirming suspicions that the unusual strain of the respiratory infection is spreading from person to person, federal health officials said yesterday.

Three new cases were found in California and two in Texas, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to seven, officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said. The CDC announced Tuesday that two children had been infected in San Diego. The agency has launched an investigation to try to determine how widespread the virus is.

Officials said there was no reason for alarm despite the growing number of cases, but they urged doctors to be on the look-out for more cases and said they were intensifying their efforts. They have also taken preliminary steps to create a vaccine against the virus if necessary.

"We don't think this is time for major concern around the country," Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

"We are taking steps to know more and stay on top of the situation," she said, adding that the agency had alerted the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization.

Two of the new cases involved a father and a daughter in San Diego County, and two others were boys who attend the same school near San Antonio. Those cases, combined with the lack of evidence that any of the infected people had contact with pigs, led officials to believe that the virus was spreading from one person to another, Schuchat said.

"We believe at this point that human-to-human spread is occurring. That's unusual. We don't know how widely it is spreading," she said, adding that she expects more cases to be identified in coming days as the investigation unfolds.

The cases so far involve three females and four males ranging in age from 9 to 54. The first child became ill March 28. The CDC confirmed the three new California cases Wednesday and the two new Texas cases -- in 16-year-old boys -- yesterday. Laboratory testing showed that the virus does not match any known flu strains.

The infection has caused typical flu-like symptoms, including high fever, sore throat and cough, as well as vomiting and diarrhea; one person was hospitalized. But so far, the virus does not appear to be causing serious illness, Schuchat said.

"The good news is all seven of these patients have recovered," she said. The virus appears to be resistant to two drugs normally used to treat the flu, but two others appear to be effective against it.

Genetic analysis of the virus indicates it is highly unusual: It is a hybrid that resulted from a combination of four different viruses -- one that typically infects people, one that originated in North American birds and two from pigs in Europe and Asia.

"This combination has not been recognized before in the U.S. or elsewhere," Schuchat said.

Although the cases all are scattered along the U.S.-Mexico border, officials have not identified any cases in Mexico. But they are continuing to investigate.

Comment by truth on April 24, 2009 at 12:34pm

I am going mask shopping later. I recommend everyone pick up a few just in case.
Call me paranoid, but who knows whats out there right now!

Comment by TheLasersShadow on April 24, 2009 at 12:23pm

60 DEAD !!!

Comment by TheLasersShadow on April 24, 2009 at 12:23pm

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.424c5b4c93103272a5d7bba...

US medical authorities expressed strong concern Friday about an unprecedented multi-strain swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 60 people in Mexico and infected seven people in the United States.

"It's very obvious that we are very concerned. We've stood up emergency operation centers," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spokesman Dave Daigle told AFP.

One major source of concern was that the virus included strains from different types of flu.

"This is the first time that we've seen an avian strain, two swine strains and a human strain," said Daigle, adding that the virus had influenza strains from European and Asian swine, but not from North American swine.

In 11 of 12 reported human cases of swine influenza (H1N1) virus infection in the United States from December 2005 to February 2009, the CDC has documented direct or indirect contact with swine.

But the seven known cases of the previously undetected strain in the United States -- five from California and two from Texas -- did not have contact with pigs. The seven people infected have all recovered from the flu.

"We have determined that this virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human," the CDC said on its website. "However, at this time, we have not determined how easily the virus spreads between people."

Local and state health officials were interviewing not just the people who were infected but the people with whom they had contact, Daigle noted.

Officials were looking for the source of the infection, Daigle said, adding that US health officials were due to receive samples from Mexico that would be tested at a lab at the centers based in Atlanta, Georgia.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified swine influenza as a potential source of a human flu pandemic. Pandemics usually occur every 20 years.

"Our experts and others are saying are not saying it's not a matter of whether but when. And we are past due," said Daigle.

Swine flu is caused by type A influenza and does not normally infect humans but cases have been reported among people, especially those exposed to pigs, the CDC said. Most outbreaks take place during the late fall and winter months.

Swine flu symptoms include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people who have contracted the virus have also reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the CDC.

Human outbreaks of H1N1 swine influenza virus were recorded in the United States in 1976 and 1988, when two deaths were reported, and in 1986. In 1988, a pregnant woman died after contact with sick pigs, the WHO said.

In recent years, the global focus for a pandemic has shifted to the H5N1 bird flu virus, which has spread from poultry to humans, especially in Asia.

Comment by truth on April 24, 2009 at 12:12pm

Oh shiot !

Comment by TheLasersShadow on April 24, 2009 at 11:44am

http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/593285.html

At the moment a meeting of the authorities of Health is realised in the Pines to determine the sanitary combat securities that will implement at national level by the cases registered of influenza in the country. To the 23 hours one will occur to know the package safety measures that will have to accept the citizens. All this after " has been registered; extension atípico" of the disease in all the country. Only in the Federal District they are had registered 23 cases confirmed of influenza and 79 more of possible patients with this virus. Until the moment, in the capital of the country they are had registered 13 deaths, and of the 23 confirmed cases, 20% are hospitalized in intensive therapy. - bablefish trans

Comment by TheLasersShadow on April 24, 2009 at 11:40am

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message776497/pg1

Breaking news it much worse than before thought... I guess we will have to wait for fascist english news to report on this my spanish is not good enough to translate.

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