Flu ( incl Swine, Bird etc ) 01 (Apr 09 - Sep 12)

[winston]

Hong Kong confirms boy, 2, sick with bird flu

Hong Kong confirmed a 2-year-old boy had contracted bird flu and placed hospitals in the Chinese territory on alert on Saturday.

However, Hong Kong Health Secretary York Chow — cited by RTHK — described the case as an isolated incident and urged the public not to panic.

The boy — a Hong Kong ID card holder — arrived from the southern Chinese city of Guangdong, where he lives, a week ago and was admitted to hospital with convulsions.

The Centre for Health Protection said he had tested positive for the AH5 strain of bird flu, according to the Herald Sun newspaper.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news ... ltry-death

[winston]

Deadly Bird Flu May Be Five Steps From Pandemic Potential By Simeon Bennett

Five genetic tweaks made a deadly strain of bird flu that can infect humans spread more easily, according to a study that the U.S. government had first sought to censor on concerns it could be used by bioterrorists.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-2 ... finds.html

[winston]

Swine Flu Deaths May Have Been 15 Times Higher Than Reported By Simeon Bennett

The 2009 swine flu pandemic may have killed 15 times more people globally than reported at the time, according to the first study to estimate the death toll.

The H1N1 influenza virus probably killed about 284,500 people worldwide, compared with 18,500 deaths reported to the World Health Organization, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases today.

More than half the deaths may have been in southeast Asia and Africa, compared with 12 percent of officially reported fatalities, the authors wrote.

The estimate shows the difficulty in tracking the effect of a pandemic as it’s unfolding, Cecile Viboud of the National Institutes of Health and Lone Simonsen of George Washington University wrote in an editorial.

The WHO, which was criticized for exaggerating the H1N1 threat, said during the outbreak that the toll would end up being “unquestionably higher” than that reported to it by national authorities.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-2 ... orted.html

[winston]

Indonesian girl who travelled to Singapore dies from avian flu

SINGAPORE: The Health Ministry says it has been informed of a case of avian influenza A (H5N1) in an eight-year-old girl from Indonesia who had travelled to Singapore.

In a statement, the ministry said the girl developed fever in Singapore on June 18 and returned to Indonesia on June 24. She died on July 3 this year.

The ministry said human cases of avian influenza A have been reported in a number of countries, including Indonesia, from time to time since 2004.

To date, the efficient spread of H5N1 from person to person has not been reported. And the Health Ministry has not been notified of any local cases of H5N1.

Singapore's Health Ministry is in close contact with the Indonesian health authorities and the World Health Organisation.

The Indonesian health authorities have reported that the girl had exposure to poultry while in Indonesia, a few days before her travel to Singapore. They are monitoring her close contacts, including family members. All contacts have remained well.

As a precautionary measure, Singapore's Health Ministry has alerted hospitals to the case and commenced contact tracing in Singapore.

The girl stayed at a hotel in Singapore with her mother and other relatives from 19 to 24 June 2012 on a vacation. She was brought to see a general practitioner for high fever on 22 June and was given treatment. Her relative who lives here and the general practitioner who treated the case are both well.

Source: CNA


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 18/1/.html

[winston]

New bird flu virus killing US baby seals: study

A new kind of bird flu has been causing deadly pneumonia in baby seals off the northeastern US coast and could pose a risk to humans, according to US research released Tuesday, AFP reports.

The new strain has been named avian H3N8, and is blamed for the deaths of 162 seals along the US coastlines last year, said the study in mBio, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Most of the dead seals were younger than six months of age.

While there have been no known human cases to date, scientists at Columbia University in New York urged caution, given the history of bird flu and its ability to evolve into forms that can infect people, like H5N1.

"Our findings reinforce the importance of wildlife surveillance in predicting and preventing pandemics,'' said W. Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

"HIV/AIDS, SARS, West Nile, Nipah and influenza are all examples of emerging infectious diseases that originated in animals,'' Lipkin added.
"Any outbreak of disease in domestic animals or wildlife, while an immediate threat to wildlife conservation, must also be considered potentially hazardous to humans.''

Scientists sequenced the full genome of the new strain and found it originated from a bird flu virus that had been circulating in North American waterfowl since 2002.

Over time, the virus gained the ability to infect mammals by latching on to receptors in their respiratory tracts.
Wildlife experts first grew alarmed in September 2011 when an increasing number of seals from the coasts of Maine to Massachusetts began developing pneumonia and skin lesions.

A total of 162 dead or dying seals were recovered over the next three months, the researchers said.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking_ ... r=20120801

[winston]

New swine flu strain in US sparks concern - Phila Siu

The government has touched base with the World Health Organization and the US health authorities about an uptick in cases of a new strain of human swine flu in the United States.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 16 people have been infected with a new strain of influenza A (H3N2) swine flu virus in the past three weeks. The new strain has not been detected locally.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... 20807&fc=2

[winston]

Indiana says swine flu cases rise ten-fold, now at 113

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Swine flu is spreading in Indiana, with human cases rising tenfold in a week, state public health officials said on Wednesday, confirming 113 people are infected and saying they expect to see more.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/ ... healthNews

[winston]

Bird flu claims ninth victim this year in Indonesia

An Indonesian man has died of bird flu, the health ministry said, in the country's ninth fatal case this year.

"The deceased was a self-employed 37-year-old male," according to the report on the ministry's website.

The man was hospitalised on July 24 with a high fever and was placed on a ventilator five days later, according to the report. He died on July 30.

Authorities do not know how the man contracted the virus, but said he lived near poultry farms.

Indonesia has been hardest-hit by bird flu, with 159 fatalities reported since 2003 out of 359 worldwide, according to World Health Organization figures, which include the latest death.

Bird flu, also known as the H5N1 virus, typically spreads from birds to humans through direct contact, but experts fear it could mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between humans.


Source: AFP Asian Edition

[winston]

Malaysia reports first H1N1 death in 2012

SEREMBAN (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - A 27-year-old Malaysian woman has become the country's first A(H1N1) influenza-related fatality in 2012 when she succumbed to the virus at a local hospital.

The woman, who worked in Singapore, had fallen ill while still in the country and died just before Hari Raya. She had reportedly been asked by her family to return home after she did not recover from a fever for several days.

State health director Dr Zailan Adnan said a post-mortem revealed that she was infected by the virus.

“We have reasons to believe that she may have been infected in Singapore. She returned for treatment here but died several days later,” she said.

Source: The Star

[winston]

WHO seeks details on Sars-linked virus after two cases in Middle East

The World Health Organisation is urgently seeking more information about a new virus, linked to severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars).

Source: SCMP