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

[winston]

DJ MARKET TALK: Thai,S'pore,HK GDP Most At Risk To Swine Flu-Citi

0924 [Dow Jones] Swine flu may result in smaller economic impact on Asia than SARS, says Citigroup, noting there's already medicine for swine flu, even if imperfect (anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza), Asia not epicenter of shock (reported incidences largely in West), Asia much better prepared now, both from medical and governance perspective.

"If the disease is contained relatively quickly and there is no permanent decline in population and production, the immediate net impact of a pandemic is to lower output and inflation." Says poorer, more densely populated and very open countries more vulnerable to higher infection rates; "our pandemic vulnerability index finds that Pakistan, Indonesia and India as well as Hong Kong and Singapore are most vulnerable to higher rates of infection, even though the last two have some of the highest health care expenditure per capita in the region."

Assuming equal rates of infection, economies most dependent on transport/tourism could see biggest GDP hit with Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong most at risk, Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia facing least risk.

[mocca_com]

Swine Flu Sickens 1,490 as Answers Sought in South (Update4)
By Tom Randall and John Lauerman

May 5 (Bloomberg) -- The virulence of the swine flu that has sickened at least 1,490 people in 21 countries may reveal itself when the Southern Hemisphere faces its influenza season beginning this month, global health authorities say.

The World Health Organization said it’s bracing for the possibility the disease will worsen as weather in those countries cools, while some reports said symptoms are no more severe than seasonal flu. The outbreak is easing in Mexico, where it struck hardest, Health Minister Jose Cordova said yesterday.

WHO will monitor the Southern Hemisphere during the flu season through September, according to Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director-general for health, security and environment. Data from the region may help scientists develop a vaccine against the virus, formally known as influenza A (H1N1), amid concern it may mutate and become the dominant flu strain.

“Information from the Southern Hemisphere is going to be pivotal to strategies to be used for the coming Northern Hemisphere winter, and decisions as to vaccine production,” said Lance Jennings, an associate professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, who advises the country on pandemic preparations.

In Mexico, the onset of warmer temperatures may be helping quell the flu, said Miguel Angel Lezana, director of the National Center for Epidemiology Control. Swine flu was spreading at about the same rate as seasonal flu, with each new patient infecting, on average, about 1.5 people, said Lezana. The number is an early estimate and may change, he said.

‘Benign Form’

“What we see now is a rather benign form of the virus, but it’s a young virus and we don’t know how it might develop,” Peter Cordingley, a spokesman with the WHO in Manila, said today by phone. “The chances of mutation are very real.”

Disease trackers are monitoring cases in Spain, with 54, and U.K., with 18, WHO said. Those countries may offer the first evidence that the virus has taken root outside the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the three countries struck first and hardest. Such a finding would prompt WHO to declare the first pandemic since 1968, said Fukuda.

“Right now we don’t think we are seeing community transmission in the same way that we are seeing it in the United States and Mexico,” Fukuda told reporters today in Geneva. “We have been in close contact with both countries.”

In the U.S., H1N1 has been confirmed by laboratory tests in 403 patients in 38 states representing each of nine regions tracked by the U.S. census, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. There are at least 140 cases in Canada, according to WHO. Mexico said today it confirmed 26 deaths among 866 cases.

London School

In the U.K., six students from Alleyn’s School in southeast London are receiving treatment for swine flu, and the establishment has been closed, the school said on its Web site.

The three main seasonal flu strains -- H3N2, another form of H1N1, and type B -- cause 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year globally, according to the WHO. The new flu’s symptoms are similar: aches, coughing, and fever.

Swine flu is suspected in 44 U.S. states, and the infected probably number in the thousands, U.S. health officials said. Even if symptoms are mild, the ease with which the new virus spreads makes it a threat, according to the CDC in Atlanta.

‘Other Viruses’

“Here in the United States, we’re at the very end of our flu season,” Richard Besser, acting chief of the CDC, said in a conference call yesterday. “There aren’t a lot of other flu viruses around that it’s competing with. What happens when it goes into countries where there are other viruses circulating?”

While small outbreaks may occur in schools or other closed settings, community-wide spread of flu has never been seen in the Northern Hemisphere from May through August, said Ira Longini, a University of Washington statistician who advises the U.S. government on influenza. The burst of cases in Mexico in April may be winding down with the end of flu season, he said.

“We’re cautiously optimistic this particular strain will not be more severe than a normal seasonal flu outbreak,” Janet Napolitano, the U.S. secretary for homeland security, told reporters in Washington yesterday. The “large majority” of the cases are “mild,” have not required hospitalization, and many of the patients have recovered, she said.

WHO added Colombia, El Salvador and Portugal to the list of countries with confirmed cases. The other nations are Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, China (Hong Kong), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S.

School Closures

Data so far suggest the virus is striking younger patients than is typical for influenza, and younger patients than usual are entering hospitals, said Anne Schuchat, a scientist at the CDC. “Very few” patients with swine flu are older than 50, and the median age is 17. It’s possible that older people have greater immunity, she said in a conference call on May 3.

The U.S. strategy to close schools with suspected cases doesn’t effectively halt the virus’s spread once it becomes established in an area, Besser, of the CDC, said. The agency is evaluating whether to change its advice to schools, he said.

About 533 schools in 24 states in the U.S. were closed yesterday for the flu, shutting out about 330,000 students, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

While there is no vaccine against swine flu, shots are the most efficient and cheapest way to fight a pandemic, said Longini, the biostatistician who advises the government on flu. Closing schools, for example costs about 20 times more, mainly because of lost work hours and services, he said.

Seed Virus

The U.S. is hastening production of its annual flu shots based on strains identified before the H1N1 outbreak, said Kathleen Sebelius, who was confirmed as the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary last week. That will make capacity available if vaccines are needed for swine flu, she said.

Batches of seed virus are being developed for potential vaccine production, according to the WHO. Sanofi-Aventis SA of Paris, Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc of London, are talking with world health authorities about producing shots, the agency said.

Authorities advised hand washing, hygiene and staying home if sick as the most effective ways to control the outbreak. The WHO and CDC said closing borders or killing animals are costly steps that wouldn’t slow the spread of flu.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at [email protected]; John Lauerman in Mexico City at [email protected]

Last Updated: May 5, 2009 13:10 EDT

[winston]

Asia's first person-to-person H1N1 flu case confirmed in SKorea

• US H1N1 flu cases rise as NY school reopens
• Nine new flu cases in Britain, seven not been to Mexico
• Influenza A (H1N1) flu cases top 1,000, says WHO

SEOUL: Asia's first person-to-person Influenza A(H1N1) infection case was confirmed on Tuesday by officials in South Korea, who said a nun had caught the disease from her colleague.

Tests revealed the 44-year-old woman, who had not travelled to Mexico, was infected with H1N1, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDCP) said.

"The nun with the second infection was classified as a probable case last Friday," a health ministry spokesman told AFP.

"She has remained in hospital after meeting an infected 51-year-old nun at an airport," he said, adding the two had lived together.

South Korea at the weekend became the second place in Asia to report a confirmed case of H1N1 flu after Hong Kong.

It also classified a 62-year-old woman as a new probable case on Sunday. She returned home from Mexico – the epicentre of the global outbreak – on April 26 on the same flight as the nun who became South Korea's first confirmed infection.

Health officials said tests on more than 30 other people were still underway.

South Korea has stepped up inspections of inbound travellers, pledging to double its stockpile of Tamiflu and other anti-influenza drugs to treat up to five million people.

It carries out rapid antigen tests on inbound travellers who are suffering from fever or symptoms of respiratory illness.

If confirmed through laboratory tests, patients will immediately be isolated. Travellers to Mexico and the United States will also be educated on how to protect themselves from H1N1 flu, health officials said.


- AFP/so

[winston]

By John Mauldin:-

A few points you ought to take away with you:

1) while the situation is serious, it's not cause to become hysterical or irrational
2) the way to evaluate the current threat is by benchmarking it against similar historical events and
3) as investors, if we don't look outside the worlds of finance and economics, we can get painfully blindsided

http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/j ... emics.aspx

[winston]

Wonder how they are going to contact the passengers ? I took a Domestic Flight and we dont have to fill up any forms. Maybe go back to the travel agency and contact you on your mobile ..

China isolates passengers on flu suspect's flight

BEIJING, May 11 (Reuters) - China quarantined more than 130 of the 150 passengers aboard a flight that carried a Chinese man who was the mainland's first suspected case of H1N1 flu, the Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

The 30-year-old man's girlfriend, father and a taxi driver had also been quarantined, said Xinhua, which cited officials at a press conference held in the provincial capital of Chengdu, in southwestern China.

The man took a Northwest Airlines flight from Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota which stopped in Tokyo and landed at Beijing. He also took a flight on Sichuan Airlines from Beijing to Chengdu.

It was not clear from the report which passengers were quarantined, although it said the man had developed symptoms of fever on the flight from Beijing to Chengdu.

The remaining passengers and others who came in contact with the man, who was studying in the state of Missouri in the United States, were being sought by authorities, said Xinhua.

The man had tested "weakly positive" to A/H1N1 virus twice by the Sichuan Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and was conscious and in stable condition, it said.

On Saturday, a Mexican traveller confirmed as Hong Kong's first and only case of the new flu strain was discharged from hospital.

[winston]

Swine Flu Is as Severe as Pandemic Virus in 1957, Study Shows By John Lauerman

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- The swine flu strain that has sickened people in 30 countries rivals the severity of the 1957 “Asian flu” pandemic that killed 2 million people, scientists said.

About four of 1,000 people infected with the new H1N1 strain in Mexico by late April died, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Science that was led by Neil Ferguson of the Imperial College London. Seasonal flu epidemics cause 250,000 to 500,000 deaths each year, the World Health Organization has said.

Scientists are trying to determine whether swine flu will mutate and become more deadly as it spreads to the Southern Hemisphere and back. The virus is more contagious than seasonal flu, the Geneva-based WHO said yesterday. A “moderate” pandemic like the 1957 Asian flu could kill 14.2 million people and shave 2 percent from the global economy in the first year, the World Bank said in October.

“While substantial uncertainty remains, clinical severity appears less than that seen in 1918 but comparable with that seen in 1957,” the Science study authors wrote.

Flu pandemics occur when a strain of the disease to which few people have immunity evolves and begins spreading. Pandemics usually occur two to three times a century, scientists have said. A worldwide outbreak as severe as the 1918 Spanish flu might cause 180 million to 260 million deaths, the World Bank said, citing a 2005 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The last pandemic hit in 1968, and health officials have been anticipating another since the H5N1 strain began spreading widely in birds in 2003.

World Spread

Swine flu has been confirmed in 4,694 people, according to the WHO, the health agency of the United Nations. Sixty-one people have died, including 56 in Mexico, three in the U.S., and one each in Canada and Costa Rica, health officials said. The U.S. confirmed 2,618 cases in 44 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Each person infected with swine flu in Mexico in April gave it to 1.4 more people on average, the study said. While that’s in the lower range of transmission speed for a pandemic virus, it’s quicker than most seasonal flus, the authors said.

An estimated 23,000 people in Mexico were infected by late April, the researchers said. That number was based on case reports and assumptions about the speed of spread, and may have been as high as 32,000 and as low as 6,000, according to the study.

More Contagious

In seasonal flu, each person who comes in contact with someone who’s sick has a 5 percent to 15 percent probability of illness, according to a statement on the WHO’s Web site. In swine flu, the probability increases to 22 percent to 33 percent, WHO said.

Swine flu has been “overwhelmingly mild outside Mexico,” the WHO statement said. The reason for that variation “is still not fully understood,” it said.

Swine flu is making more young people seriously ill, compared with seasonal flu, and “is of particular concern” because it’s causing more significant medical effects in people with other health conditions, the WHO said.

[winston]

Malaysia confirms first case of swine flu AP

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Malaysia on Friday confirmed its first case of swine flu, a 21-year-old student who recently returned from the United States.

A statement by the Health Ministry's director-general, Dr. Ismail Merican, said the young man was hospitalized on Thursday after suffering from fever, sore throat and body aches. He had returned to Malaysia from the United States on Wednesday.

Tests confirmed that he was infected with the A(H1N1) virus, the statement said. He is receiving anti-viral treatment and is in stable condition, it said.

Ismail said the ministry is in touch with his family members to ensure that he did not infect them, but they have not been placed under quarantine.

He also urged all passengers on the Malaysia Airlines flight from Newark on Wednesday to contact the ministry.
Ismail said the public has no reason to panic as his department was taking steps to protect public health.

Globally, 70 people have died of swine flu, 64 of them in Mexico where the virus originated. Four deaths have been reported in the U.S., one in Canada and one in Costa Rica.

According to the World Health Organization, some 6,672 people in 33 countries are confirmed to be suffering from the disease.

The WHO estimates that up to 2 billion doses of swine flu vaccine could be produced every year, though the first batches wouldn't be available for four to six months.

[mocca_com]

1,000 more confirmed H1N1 flu cases added in one day

Posted: 15 May 2009 1727 hrs


A student attends her class wearing a protective mask at the Faculty of Medicine in the Mexican Autonomous University.


GENEVA - The World Health Organisation said Friday the number of confirmed Influenza A (H1N1) cases has reached 7,520, rising more than one thousand in 24 hours. Sixty five people have died from the virus.

The UN health agency had reported 6,497 H1N1 flu cases in 33 countries just a day ago.

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 56/1/.html

[millionairemind]

May 18, 2009, 12.06 pm (Singapore time)

Swine flu could have 'notable economic effects': IMF

TOKYO - The global spread of swine flu could have notable effects on the world economy, a senior IMF official said on Monday, warning that the financial crisis was far from over.

John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said the risks posted by the new type of flu were 'hard to predict' but it could have 'notable economic effects.'

The global downturn is 'far from over,' he said in a speech here, suggesting that many Asian nations have room to cut interest rates further to spur a recovery in their economies.

Swine flu infections across the globe have soared above 8,000. More than 70 people have died from the virus - all of them in the Americas and nearly all in Mexico, where the new strain was first detected less than a month ago.

In Japan the number of confirmed cases shot up to at least 121 on Monday and hundreds of schools were closed to battle the outbreak. -- AFP

[winston]

Yes, this Swine Flu is starting to be like Y2k. I recall that everyone was poo-pooing Subprime when it started too

From Jenny Thompson, HSI

Last week, just after I boarded a flight to Florida, the man sitting next to me excused himself to go into the overhead to find his swine flu facemask in his carryon. After putting on the mask, he soon took it off to have some coffee, then took it off again later to drink a soda.

Now...I'm no doctor, but to protect yourself from an airborne virus you should probably put your mask on before you leave home, and then KEEP it on.

I'm pretty sure viruses don't take coffee breaks.

Not that my seatmate was in any danger. I didn't have swine flu. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that no one on our flight had swine flu. In fact, these past few weeks, you'd be hard pressed to come down with swine flu even in Mexico City, where fewer than 1,000 cases have been reported among the 20 million people who live there.

So how did the enormous worldwide scare get so blown out of proportion?

I've got two theories.

Theory One: Newscasters love the word "pandemic." It's a powerful word, and when they use it they know they're scaring the daylights out of us. So a few cases of swine flu quickly turned into speculation that this "pandemic" could be the Big One.

Theory Two: In the e-Alert "Deal or No Deal?" (4/12/06), I noted that in October 2005, the U.S. government paid out $2 billion to purchase 200 million doses of Tamiflu – the medication that's supposed to reduce flu symptoms. That huge supply of Tamiflu has been sitting around for more than three years now – it must be nearing its expiration date. So...hmmm...how could we move a LOT of Tamiflu that's about to expire?

Soon after newscasters started their morning-noon-and-night pandemic coverage, U.S. authorities shipped millions of Tamiflu doses to various states.