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UPDATE 1-U.S. acts swiftly to contain swine flu outbreak

* US to release 25 percent of anti-viral stockpile

* Health chief recommends planning for school closures

* Too early to determine impact on economy (Updates to add information from CDC briefing)

By Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) - The United States declared a public health emergency on Sunday because of an outbreak of swine flu that has been diagnosed in 20 people in this country -- the same strain suspected of killing 81 people in Mexico.

The outbreak is yet another distraction for President Barack Obama as he focuses on rescuing the economy from its worst crisis in decades. His administration will also be mindful of the damage to former President George W. Bush over his government's inept handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"At this point, a top priority is to ensure that communication is robust and that medical surveillance efforts are fully activated," John Brennan, assistant to the president for Homeland Security, told a White House briefing.

Dr Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a separate briefing she feared that some people would die in the United States as the virus spread.

Health and Homeland Security officials announced steps to release some of the U.S. stockpiles of the anti-flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. They recommended that local authorities plan for possible school closures and that anyone with symptoms stay at home to reduce the possibility of transmission.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it was too early to say what impact the outbreak could have on efforts to get the economy back on its feet. Spiraling healthcare costs are already a huge drain on the economy.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the declaration of the public health emergency was necessary to free federal, state and local agencies' resources and authorize the release of funds to buy more antivirals.

"This is standard operating procedure," Napolitano stressed, adding that similar declarations had been issued in the past to help states cope with flooding or hurricanes.

CASES MILD

The CDC confirmed 20 cases of swine flu in the United States and said all the patients had recovered and only one person had to be hospitalized. Officials said they were not testing air travelers from Mexico for the virus.

UPDATE 1-U.S. acts swiftly to contain swine flu outbreak

The CDC is preparing a "yellow card" for travelers explaining the flu symptoms and what precautions to take, Schuchat said. U.S. health officials are stressing frequent hand washing as the first line of defense against the virus.

Tests so far show that the H1N1 component of the seasonal flu vaccine does not protect against the new H1N1 swine flu strain, Schuchat said. It could take several months to develop a vaccine for the new virus, she added.  Continued...

The virus in the U.S. cases appeared to be the same strain as the one that has killed scores in Mexico, CDC acting Director Dr Richard Besser said, although it was not yet clear why it had not proven as deadly in the United States. Health officials from the United States and Canada were now in Mexico to try to answer this "critical question," he said.

"We expect to see more cases of swine flu. As we continue to look for cases, we expect that we will find them," Besser said.

Napolitano said the United States would release 25 percent of the 50 million anti-flu drugs from the strategic national stockpile. The Department of Defense has also bought 7 million courses of Tamiflu for defense personnel, she said.

Tamiflu, a pill made by Roche AG ROG.X and Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O), and GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK.L) (GSK.N) and Biota's (BTA.AX) Relenza, an inhaled drug, can treat influenza if given quickly. They have been shown to work against this new flu strain.

Gibbs said Obama, who recently returned from a trip to Mexico, had shown no symptoms of the virus and had therefore not been tested. (Additional reporting by Kim Dixon, Donna Smith and Maggie Fox; editing by Eric Beech)

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2649351120090426
178 Responses
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Avatar universal
It hit New York so it's only a matter of time before it's everywhere.
Sad to say.  
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Avatar universal
Thanks Jim.
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Avatar universal
from NYTImes

Many questions surround the current outbreak of swine flu, which caused the United States government on Sunday to declare a public health emergency after confirming 20 cases in this country. American officials stressed that the cases here were all mild, with only one person hospitalized.

But in Mexico, where the outbreak began, swine flu is believed to have killed at least 81 people and to have given about 1,300 serious breathing problems. The central question every flu expert in the world would like answered, Dr. Martin Cetron, director of global migration and quarantine for the Centers for Disease Control, said in an interview, is how many mild cases Mexico has had.

“We may just be looking at the tip of the iceberg, which would give you a skewed initial estimate of the case fatality rate,” he said, meaning that there may have been tens of thousands of mild infections, which would then make the number of deaths seemingly low. In that case, as the flu spreads, it would not be surprising if the number of people who become seriously ill remained relatively small.

Right now, the answer is unknowable. Only two laboratories the world, the C.D.C. in Atlanta and the Canadian national laboratory in Winnipeg, have developed the reagents needed to do a positive test for the new flu strain, so samples from any other country must be sent to them for confirmation.

Even in 1918, experts point out, the pandemic Spanish flu infected at least 500 million of the world’s 1.5 billion people, killing 50 million. Many of those lives would have been saved if anti-flu drugs, antibiotics and mechanical ventilators had existed.

In early April, Mexico had noticed that it had high numbers of serious respiratory illnesses and some deaths. It began sending samples to Canada and the United States, asking for help genotyping the new virus.

The ages of the victims in Mexico also concern health officials. Unlike typical flu seasons, when infants and the aged are usually the most vulnerable, none of the initial deaths in Mexico were in people older than 60 or younger than 3 years old, a spokeswoman with the World Health Organization said. Pandemic flus — like the 1918 flu and outbreaks in 1957 and 1968 — often strike young, healthy people the hardest. When a new virus emerges, deaths may occur in healthy adults who mount the strongest immune reactions. Their own defenses — inflammation and leaking fluid in lung cells — can essentially drown them from inside.

A second hypothesis, Dr. Cetron said, is that there is some other factor in Mexico that increased the lethality of the virus, such as co-infection with another microbe or an unwittingly dangerous form of treatment.

For example, a co-infection with the AIDS virus makes it much more likely that someone with tuberculosis will die of it. And Reyes syndrome emerged when infants with fevers were treated with aspirin.

However, Dr. Cetron emphasized that there is no evidence of any co-infection in Mexico or anything unusual about flu treatment there.

Flu experts would also like to know whether this year’s flu shots give any cross-protection against the new swine flu strains. There is an H1N1 human strain in this year’s flu shot, and all H1N1 flus are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain. But flus pick up many mutations over the years, especially when they move back and forth between humans, pigs, birds and other hosts.

There will be no evidence for several days as to whether the shots are protective, until the C.D.C. can get stored blood samples with antibodies to the flu shot and test them against the new virus. Those tests are under way now, according to a flu expert who sent the C.D.C. his blood samples.

In several countries, students reported they were ill upon returning from spring break in Mexico. For example, three teachers and 22 students at Rangitoto College, a New Zealand high school near Auckland, were reported to be ill after arriving after a three-week trip to Mexico on a flight via Los Angeles.

Mexico’s annual flu season was trailing off in March, when there was a new spike in cases. That usually happens when B strain flus peak late in the season, but B strains are usually mild. Mexico sent samples to the United States and Canada after its officials realized the country was having an unusual outbreak with severe cases.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/health/27questions.html
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9648 tn?1290091207
http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/whatsnew.htm
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547836 tn?1302832832
yike!  i still have to go to school bc it's finals time with at least 80 kids in 1 room for each of my classes.  also, i'm in a border state, and having low whites isn't a good thing either.  should i start carrying masks around with me?

just got home from a dance recital and was nervous the entire time of the people sitting around me!  there was a little boy who kept coughing and a woman behind me who kept sneezing and blowing her nose.  ahh!  definitely taking my Neupogen tonight, should have had it earlier last night!
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Avatar universal
http://twitter.com/CDCemergency
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Avatar universal
Check out the "kitty mask" :)

http://allscrubbedup.blogspot.com/2007/12/designer-surgical-masks.html

But seriously, you probably want to call your doctor and the school on Monday to see if any precautions are warranted.

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Avatar universal
Cute jmjm...  :)

Yes, Lal, I agree with Jim.  Call and find out what your doc recommends especially since you are in a school setting with close contact with large numbers of people.
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Avatar universal
Maybe the school will offer an option to take final exams over the summer or something like that. Meow.
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547836 tn?1302832832
dude this thing is spreading fast, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, 5 states already in the US.
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276730 tn?1327962946
This is hitting like wildfire...now Ohio, Queens , New York, Texas, Ca and of course Mexico. They just said they expect alot more by mid week.......

Nothing here in Florida yet........

Stay out of airports and hospitals if at all possible........
Geez.....how sad is this.
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Avatar universal
Stay out of airports and hospitals if at all possible........
Geez.....how sad is this.
---------------------------------------

In particular avoid "How I spent my Spring Break in Mexico" parties
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Avatar universal
NOW THE S.HIT WUILL HIT THE FAN
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Avatar universal
Can you say TERRORISM
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Avatar universal
Yup, Mexico is not exactly a good place to visit for several reasons now.
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Avatar universal
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://msnbcmedia1.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/040727/040727_kerry_hmed_4p.hmedium.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5528951/&h=272&w=423&sz=19&tbnid=TsGu_i0rQxWPAM::&tbnh=81&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Danti-contamination%2Bsuits%2Bphotos&hl=en&usg=__dsDr-CZ6FosvDW77FjQYFJdIEDw=&ei=GeT0SaS4H6OxtgfZ2-C5Dw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image
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Avatar universal
How bout public transit,will this shut down and the airports?
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Avatar universal
Stay out of airports.  Sigh.  My son is sitting in O'Hare at the moment just having come from San Diego.  I'm on my way soon to pick him up at Toronto Airport.  I'm seriously thinking of quarantining him at home for 48 hours, the upper limit of the 24-48 incubation period for this.
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547836 tn?1302832832
this is so insane, i'm in one of the infected states and my school is doing NOTHING about it.  will submit an emergency inquiry to them NOW.
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Avatar universal
Transmission among humans is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu - by touching something with flu viruses and then touching their mouth or nose, and through coughing or sneezing.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-flu-box25-2009apr25,0,5114253.story
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Avatar universal
Trish, probably not an unreasonable thing to do.  Trouble will be getting him to agree with you.  :)
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276730 tn?1327962946
He will be okay...I just wish he were home already too!
This is horrible....and the media is just reporting constantly.......and people are really starting to panic...and yet some arent paying it any mind at all..............
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Avatar universal
Hospitals are real bad to be in...the ventalation systems can spread it very fast....same as subways....ill be wearing my maskwhen i go shopping  from now on....they may think im a bank robber
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Avatar universal
I posted this on the other side too.  Kind of a handy site:

http://twitter.com/CDCemergency

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