Posted on 07/22/2009 8:06:41 AM PDT by george76
Canada has recorded a case of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu virus, in a Quebec man who had been given the drug to prevent infection.
Meanwhile, Japan revealed Tuesday it had found a second such case of Tamiflu resistance, in a person who has no ties to the country’s earlier reported case.
(Excerpt) Read more at thespec.com ...
oh joy
i cannot help but be a bit concerned about this
If so it will be all over the world via airplanes in a matter of days/weeks.
God help us in our day. Amen.
We just had a case pop up in the little Methodist Camp down the road.
You said — oh joy i cannot help but be a bit concerned about this
—
You should, it’s the first flu pandemic in 41 years...
Flu Pandemic Is Declared — First Time in 41 Years
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2293200/posts
A/H1N1 pandemic spreads at unprecedented speed, says WHO
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2296007/posts
From...
Time Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6716477.ece
Britain could face up to 65,000 swine flu deaths
July 16, 2009
Sam Lister, Health Editor
“The number of swine flu cases has jumped by nearly 50 per cent in a week”
Up to 65,000 people could die as a result of swine flu as the pandemic takes hold of the country, according to latest planning calculations by the Department of Health.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, said that the estimate of 65,000 deaths was based on 30 per cent of the population becoming ill. But the actual figure could be anywhere between 3,000 and 750,000 fatalities, he added.
He said that statistics showed “exceptional influenza activity” in terms of the number of people visiting their GP across most of the country, except Yorkshire and the Humber.
You said — How serious does this portend the future of this flu? Has it combined with yet another flu virus strain?
If so it will be all over the world via airplanes in a matter of days/weeks.
God help us in our day. Amen.
—
Well...
Study Suggests H1N1 Virus More Dangerous Than Suspected
Article Date: 15 Jul 2009 - 1:00 PDT
A new, highly detailed study of the H1N1 flu virus shows that the pathogen is more virulent than previously thought.
Writing in a fast-tracked report published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers led by University of Wisconsin-Madison virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka provides a detailed portrait of the pandemic virus and its pathogenic qualities.
In contrast with run-of-the-mill seasonal flu viruses, the H1N1 virus exhibits an ability to infect cells deep in the lungs, where it can cause pneumonia and, in severe cases, death. Seasonal viruses typically infect only cells in the upper respiratory system.
“There is a misunderstanding about this virus,” says Kawaoka, a professor of pathobiological sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine and a leading authority on influenza. “People think this pathogen may be similar to seasonal influenza. This study shows that is not the case. There is clear evidence the virus is different than seasonal influenza.”
The ability to infect the lungs, notes Kawaoka, is a quality frighteningly similar to those of other pandemic viruses, notably the 1918 virus, which killed tens of millions of people at the tail end of World War I. There are likely other similarities to the 1918 virus, says Kawaoka, as the study also showed that people born before 1918 harbor antibodies that protect against the new H1N1 virus.
And it is possible, he adds, that the virus could become even more pathogenic as the current pandemic runs its course and the virus evolves to acquire new features. It is now flu season in the world’s southern hemisphere, and the virus is expected to return in force to the northern hemisphere during the fall and winter flu season.
To assess the pathogenic nature of the H1N1 virus, Kawaoka and his colleagues infected different groups of mice, ferrets and non-human primates - all widely accepted models for studies of influenza - with the pandemic virus and a seasonal flu virus. They found that the H1N1 virus replicates much more efficiently in the respiratory system than seasonal flu and causes severe lesions in the lungs similar to those caused by other more virulent types of pandemic flu.
“When we conducted the experiments in ferrets and monkeys, the seasonal virus did not replicate in the lungs,” Kawaoka explains. “The H1N1 virus replicates significantly better in the lungs.”
The new study was conducted with samples of the virus obtained from patients in California, Wisconsin, the Netherlands and Japan.
The new Nature report also assessed the immune response of different groups to the new virus. The most intriguing finding, according to Kawaoka, is that those people exposed to the 1918 virus, all of whom are now in advanced old age, have antibodies that neutralize the H1N1 virus. “The people who have high antibody titers are the people born before 1918,” he notes.
Kawaoka says that while finding the H1N1 virus to be a more serious pathogen than previously reported is worrisome, the new study also indicates that existing and experimental antiviral drugs can form an effective first line of defense against the virus and slow its spread.
There are currently three approved antiviral compounds, according to Kawaoka, whose team tested the efficacy of two of those compounds and the two experimental antiviral drugs in mice. “The existing and experimental drugs work well in animal models, suggesting they will work in humans,” Kawaoka says.
Antiviral drugs are viewed as a first line of defense, as the development and production of mass quantities of vaccines take months at best.
In addition to his appointment at UW-Madison, Kawaoka also is a professor at the University of Tokyo. The new study was funded by grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
Source
University of Wisconsin-Madison
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/157485.php
I’m dreading this coming fall and winter flu season. That should tell us if this strain is going to be like the 1918 Spanish flu and mutate into something much more lethal.
This is closely related to the 1918 deadly strain of flu...
1918 Flu Pandemic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
Mortality
The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that 10% to 20% of those who were infected died. With about a third of the world population infected, this case-fatality ratio means that 3% to 6% of the entire global population died.[11] Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people[4] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed.[12] This pandemic has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed more people than the Black Death.[13]
As many as 17 million died in India, about 5% of India’s population at the time.[14] In Japan, 23 million persons were affected, and 390,000 died.[15] In the U.S., about 28% of the population suffered, and 500,000 to 675,000 died.[16] In Britain as many as 250,000 died; in France more than 400,000.[17] In Canada approximately 50,000 died.[18] Entire villages perished in Alaska[19] and southern Africa.[which?] Ras Tafari (the future Haile Selassie) was one of the first Ethiopians who contracted influenza but survived,[20] although many of his subjects did not; estimates for the fatalities in the capital city, Addis Ababa, range from 5,000 to 10,000, with some experts opining that the number was even higher,[21] while in British Somaliland one official there estimated that 7% of the native population died from influenza.[22] In Australia an estimated 12,000 people died and in the Fiji Islands, 14% of the population died during only two weeks, and in Western Samoa 22%.
This huge death toll was caused by an extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, suspected to be caused by cytokine storms.[4] Indeed, symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, “One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred.”[12] The majority of deaths were from bacterial pneumonia, a secondary infection caused by influenza, but the virus also killed people directly, causing massive hemorrhages and edema in the lung.[9]
The unusually severe disease killed between 2 and 20% of those infected, as opposed to the more usual flu epidemic mortality rate of 0.1%.[9][12] Another unusual feature of this pandemic was that it mostly killed young adults, with 99% of pandemic influenza deaths occurring in people under 65, and more than half in young adults 20 to 40 years old.[23] This is unusual since influenza is normally most deadly to the very young (under age 2) and the very old (over age 70), and may have been due to partial protection caused by exposure to a previous Russian flu pandemic of 1889.[24]
—
Bears repeating...
The global mortality rate from the 1918/1919 pandemic is not known, but it is estimated that 10% to 20% of those who were infected died.
With about a third of the world population infected, this case-fatality ratio means that 3% to 6% of the entire global population died.[11]
Influenza may have killed as many as 25 million in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people[4] while current estimates say 50 million to 100 million people worldwide were killed.[12]
This pandemic has been described as “the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed more people than the Black Death.[13]
NEW FLU “UNSTOPPABLE”, WHO SAYS, CALLS FOR VACCINE
Mon Jul 13, 2009 7:48pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saying the new H1N1 virus is “unstoppable”, the World Health Organization gave drug makers a full go-ahead to manufacture vaccines against the pandemic influenza strain on Monday and said healthcare workers should be the first to get one.
Every country will need to vaccinate citizens against the swine flu virus and must choose who else would get priority after nurses, doctors and technicians, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research.
Several reports showed the new virus attacks people differently than seasonal flu — affecting younger people, the severely obese and seemingly healthy adults, and causing disease deep in the lungs.
Kieny briefed reporters on the findings of the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, or SAGE. “The committee recognized that the H1N1 pandemic ... is unstoppable and therefore that all countries need access to vaccine,” Kieney said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56C60820090713
OVER 160 NEW A/H1N1 FLU CASES CONFIRMED IN EUROPE
2009-07-19 07:02:07
STOCKHOLM, July 18 (Xinhua) — A European health agency said on Saturday that 169 new A/H1N1 flu cases were reported in European countries within the last 24 hours.
Of the new cases, 87 were confirmed in Spain, 33 in France, 15 in Switzerland, 10 in Portugal, six in Luxembourg, five in Ireland, three in Slovenia, two each in Belgium, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Iceland, and one each in Poland and Romania, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in its daily situation report.
The total number of confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 flu virus in the EU (European Union) and EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries rose to 16,059, with 1,309 cases in Spain and 10,649 in Britain, 514 in France and 834 in Germany, the ECDC said.
The ECDC publishes a daily situation report about A/H1N1 flu cases in the EU and EFTA countries based on official information from these countries.
A/H1N1 FLU CONTINUES TO SPREAD WORLDWIDE, MORE CASES REPORTED
2009-07-19 13:35:11
BEIJING, July 19 (Xinhua) — With the A/H1N1 flu pandemic continuing to spread, more confirmed cases were reported worldwide on Saturday.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in its daily situation report Saturday that 169 new A/H1N1 flu cases were reported in European countries within the last 24 hours.
Of the new cases, 87 were confirmed in Spain, 33 in France, 15 in Switzerland, 10 in Portugal, six in Luxembourg, five in Ireland, three in Slovenia, two each in Belgium, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Iceland, and one each in Poland and Romania.
The total number of confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 flu virus in the EU (European Union) and EFTA (European Free Trade Association) countries rose to 16,059, with 1,309 cases in Spain and 10,649 in Britain, 514 in France and 834 in Germany, the ECDC said.
In Russia, the number of confirmed cases rose to 10 after one new case was registered in southwestern Siberia, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Saturday.
The new patient, a 14-year-old girl from Tomsk, contracted the flu virus on a trip to Britain, the regional administration said.
In Georgia, authorities on Saturday confirmed the country’s first case of the flu in a male Georgian citizen who had recently returned home from Britain. The man has been put under isolation and was in a stable condition, said authorities.
Singapore reported its first death from the A/H1N1 flu virus Saturday, signaling a worsening situation of the epidemic in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to Singapore’s Health Ministry, a 49-year-old man infected with the virus died of heart attack Saturday afternoon.
The ministry said the patient had multiple co-morbidities, including diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.
He was admitted to Singapore’s Changi General Hospital on July 16 after four days of flu-like symptoms and was diagnosed with A/H1N1 influenza.
According to the latest official data, Singapore has confirmed more than 1,200 infection cases.
Indonesia said on Saturday that 15 people were infected with the A/H1N1 virus, bringing the total number in the country to 157.
Of the new cases, two were foreigners and the rest were Indonesian citizens.
Four of the 15 were male and 11 were female aged between four and 49. All of them were being treated at hospitals in Jakarta, Bandung of West Java, Bali, Medan of North Sumatra and Surabaya of East Java.
The Bangladeshi authorities have confirmed two more A/H1N1 flu cases, bringing the total number of such cases in the South Asian country to 24, according to local newspaper The Independent on Saturday.
The country’s health authorities were quoted as saying that 18 of the 24 patients, aged between 2 and 46, have fully recovered while six were still receiving medical treatment.
Ten of the cases contracted the virus within the country and all of them were relatives of those infected people who had returned from abroad.
The Saudi Health Ministry Saturday confirmed nine new A/H1N1 cases, bringing the country’s total number of infections to 294.
Seven of the newly diagnosed cases were Saudi citizens — six male and one female — while the other two were foreigners, said Health Minister Abdullah al-Rabia in a statement.
The statement said 215 cases in the country have completely recovered, while the rest were in a stable condition and receiving treatment.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Thursday that it will stop tracking A/H1N1 cases, saying that the pandemic is the fastest growing ever and it is pointless to count each case.
The WHO, however, called on countries to continue to report clusters of severe cases or deaths caused by the new virus or unusual clinical patterns.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/19/content_11732005.htm
Australia’s swine flu cases have topped 10,000 with officials in the worst-hit Asia-Pacific country reporting two deaths and warned the virus “preferred young people.”
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the national tally was now 10,387, more than 10 percent of the global total confirmed by the World Health Organization with 123 people in hospital.
South Australia and Queensland states reported two deaths of people with the disease, taking the national flu-linked toll to 22. A(H1N1) however has not yet been confirmed as the cause of any of the deaths.
Roxon said the number of cases would climb as the southern hemisphere winter progresses. She said the real caseload was likely much higher as mild infections were not being tested.
“The numbers are expected to peak in August ... the pandemic strain of flu is becoming the predominant flu strain in Australia this winter,” the minister told reporters.
She said those hit hardest mostly had pre-existing medical conditions, but warned that health authorities were now worried about a growing number of serious cases in young people.
“We do see that there are some people who are young and otherwise healthy who have the rapidly deteriorating disease ... it’s obviously concerning,” she said.
Roxon said patients’ average age was 19, adding that doctors and health workers had been told to watch for young people with trouble breathing because their condition could quickly become life-threatening.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.5eef86ae79464179681179084700cbde.be1&show_article=1
Very interesting. Thank you for the information.
Get right with God. Hell is a real place.
You do not want to go to hell.
get a bunch of the different kinds of home remedies
thieves oil, wild oregeno oil, NAC, vitmin D, etc
Learn how to percuss a chest.
You can actually have a person lean over the bed and do the percussion and keep going while they cough the stuff up..they did this back in the old days.
Don’t rely just a Tamiflu.
I still am not sure whether to use Sambucol. Some reports say it has been tested and other say it will increase the Cytokine storm. I have it but probably won’t use it until further info. Can be used with regular flu, though. However, you won’t know whether you have regular flu or swine flu unless you get the rapid flu test.
What is NAC?
Great info. Thanks.
Whether you are suffering from some flu bug, a bad chest cold, pneumonia, if you have congestion in your lungs, here is something you can do to help yourself out, it’s cheap and effective:
1.) If you don’t already have one, get a cool mist humidifier unit (many models and types available).
2.) Fill the reservoir container with cold water, leave enough room to add ONE bottle (450 to 500 ml) of 3% hydrogen peroxide, yes I said good ol’ hydrogen peroxide.
3.) Turn the humidifier on as you retire for the night, close the bedroom door to keep the humidified & peroxided air in the room. Be sure your windows are closed.
Now as you sleep, your nose, sinus, throat and lungs will be getting exposed to one of the most powerful and potent antiseptics anywhere, i.e., hydrogen peroxide. It kills germs by the bushel. It will loosen up phlegm and all of that crap in your respiratory system and you WILL be waking up in the morning hacking it out.
Now the manufacturers of humidifiers (and some doctors) will tell you NOT to do this, my advice? Ignore ‘em and do it anyway. I got over my initial reluctance to try this years ago, and I was amazed at the results, and I think you will be too.
Remember also, that the ratio of water to hydrogen peroxide is still overwhelming so you’re not at risk of asphyxiating yourself or anything like that. I’m living proof of it and I’ve been doing this for years now.
As a PS, I also use hydrogen peroxide in the ear canals to get rid of excess wax, and any germs in there die a quick death too. Lay on your side and have someone pour a capful of H-P into your ear, you’ll feel it snap-crackle and pop, it will itch and tickle a little bit, then hold a Kleenex over your ear when you get up to catch what drains out.
‘Hydrogen Peroxide’, better living through simple off-the-shelf products.
Hope this helps someone.
MKJ
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