H5N1

Chile, Argentina report more H1N1 cases

Via Agence France Presse: Chile swine flu cases jump to 276. Excerpt:

Chilean health authorities confirmed 26 new cases of swine flu, raising the number of patients with A(H1N1) virus in the country to 276, the highest number on the continent. 

The sometimes-deadly disease continued its rise across Latin America meanwhile with Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru and the Dominican Republic all reporting new cases. 

Officials here said that most of the victims were in the capital, and that most cases were mild and being treated at home. Three people remain in serious condition in hospital, however. 

Swine flu has killed nearly a hundred and infected over 15,500 worldwide, according to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, since it emerged in North America in late April. 

According to figures released by individual governments, the virus has actually now killed more than 110 people around the world. 

In the southern hemisphere, health experts fear the new virus could take hold, as winter sets in and the regular flu season gets underway. 

Argentine health authorities meanwhile reported 15 new cases on Sunday, a day after reporting 20 new cases, raising the country's total patient count to 115.

Why Korea has four more H1N1 cases

Via the Korea Herald: Four more H1N1 cases confirmed. Excerpt: 

Health officials said yesterday four more additional cases of H1N1, a subtype of influenza A, have been confirmed here, raising the total number of infected people to 39. 

The latest cases include a 16-year-old male student who reported himself to a nearby public health center last Thursday after entering the country on Monday and showing symptoms the following day, according to officials. 

Another 28-year-old male student was classified as a suspected case after showing symptoms at the airport quarantine while returning home from the United States on Saturday. 

A 38-year-old woman and a U.S. national baby, who entered Korea last Monday and Tuesday respectively, were both reported to nearby public health centers last Thursday. 

"The virus is infiltrating through overseas residents or students who come back home during the summer holidays season," said an official of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

According to the Foreign Ministry, there are at least 154,600 Korean students in the United States, Canada and Japan where the disease continues to spread widely. 

Some 6,000 to 6,500 travelers enter the country every day on direct flights from the United States.

This afternoon I finished a new book titled Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, by Jeff Rubin, who for 20 years was chief economist of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Rubin argues that our present global economy is a product of cheap oil. When the price of oil spiked last year, it caused the recession—not the deadbeat homeowners in Cleveland and LA.

The recession in turn pulled oil prices down, temporarily. (Here in Vancouver, gas is already back up to about US$3.80 a gallon.) 

Because of cheap oil, over 150,000 young Koreans can afford to fly to the US and spend several years absorbing a very expensive education, while 6,500 people fly in to Seoul every day from the US. That's 2,372,500 a year. 

Korea, meanwhile, uses untold quantities of water and imported oil to produce the computer chips we all use to learn about H1N1 on the web. The chips pay for the oil and the students.

When oil prices spike again, and they will, it will no longer be possible to fly Korean students and Chilean strawberries to the US, or for Brits to spend a drunken weekend in the Balearic Islands, or for Australians to cruise to the Great Barrier Reef.

From an epidemiological point of view, this is good news. The vast majority of H1N1 cases around the world, from Chile to China, arrived via airliner from the United States or Canada or Mexico. North American universities and Mexican beach resorts would be much poorer without cheap jet fuel, but people around the world would be much healthier.

Yes, I know—in 1918, when the most advanced aircraft was the Sopwith Camel, Spanish flu traveled the world by train and freighter with amazing speed. But that was an earlier age of globalization, powered by cheap coal instead of cheap oil.

A worldwide economic collapse will cause far more deaths than even human-to-human H5N1 with a 60% case fatality ratio. But if we don't include economic factors in our plans for pandemic, I don't want to think about the death rates.

Can Shakira save Mexican tourism?

In El Universal, a commentary (my translation below):

Todo está listo para echar a andar toda una campaña de publicidad para tratar de resucitar los sitios turísticos del país, que hoy parecen más pueblos arrasados por una guerra nuclear por el asunto de la influenza, que lugares de diversión y esparcimiento llenos de visitantes. 

La punta de lanza de la estrategia será Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, mejor conocida como Shakira. La popular cantante colombiana estará este lunes en Cancún, Quintana Roo, desde donde lanzará una invitación al mundo para visitar México. 

Con ella estarán el gobernador, Félix González Canto, y el secretario de Turismo, Rodolfo Elizondo Torres. No hay mayores detalles sobre la participación de Shakira en esta campaña, pero que la colombiana hará que muchos volteen a ver al país, es más que un hecho.

Everything is ready to launch a PR campaign to try to revive the country's tourist destinations, which today look more like towns erased by a nuclear war thanks to influenza, than like places of enjoyment full of visitors.

The spearhead of this campaign will be Isabel Mebarak Ripoli, better known as Shakira. The popular Colombian singer will be in Cancún, Quintana Roo, this Monday, where she will invite the world to visit Mexico.

With her will be the governor, Félix González Canto, and the Secretary of Tourism, Rodolfo Elizonda Torres. No more details are available about Shakira's involvement in the campaign, but the Colombian is sure to make many return to the country.

I hope it works. After SARS,Toronto had to bring in the Rolling Stones.

UK: Swine flu pandemic likely to hit UK in early autumn before vaccine is ready

Via the Guardian, a report dated June 1: Swine flu pandemic likely to hit UK in early autumn before vaccine is ready. Excerpt:

The UK is likely to be struck by a swine flu pandemic in the early autumn before a vaccine is available, an influenza expert said yesterday. 

A pandemic should be expected in September or October when schools and universities reopen and people return from their summer holidays, said John Oxford, professor of virology at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London hospital. 

The warning came as the Health Protection Agency (HPA) confirmed another 14 cases of swine flu in England, bringing the UK total to 244. 

The professor said the number of cases in Britain unrelated to travel suggested the H1N1 virus was "silently spreading around". 

Oxford said: "When children go back to school in September the virus has an opportunity, and normally it takes it. That's the scenario we should prepare for and that's what we are preparing for."

His comments came as the HPA wrote to the parents of pupils at Eton College stating there are now four confirmed cases and 32 suspected cases of swine flu at the school. A 13-year-old pupil tested positive for the illness last week, prompting the Berkshire school to close for a week. 

The professor urged people to observe good hygiene. "I view it like a medieval castle, with several layers of defence," he said. "You've got the outer layer that is hygiene and social distancing, then the virus breaks through that and then we have antivirals like Tamiflu and then the final layer is the vaccine."

To extend a metaphor from my post just below, when the Turks have come over the walls, a few street barricades around Hagia Sophia are not going to save the Byzantine Empire.

This is a personal bias, I admit. Vaccines are great in the long term. That's why smallpox is gone, and polio is almost gone. But people died of smallpox for generations after Jenner died. Polio still kills people half a century after Salk and Sabin, and 60 years after I survived it by sheer luck.

So to me it seems silly to agonize over whether we can create a vaccine in time, or in sufficient quantity, to fend off a pandemic of H1N1 or H5N1. We can't and we won't. 

We might save a few thousand that way, but millions will just have to catch the disease and hope to survive it with whatever resources their immune systems can offer.

Australia: June 1 update

Via the Australian department of health: Health Emergency - H1N1 Influenza 09 (Human Swine Influenza) Outbreak. Excerpt:

There were five (5) new confirmed cases of Human Swine Flu reported overnight, all in Queensland. The new cases include two people in Cairns including the mother of the 13 year old girl who was confirmed as having H1N1 Influenza on Saturday and a year eight student from St Mary’s Catholic College, Woree. 

There are three from the Gold Coast. One of these was a passenger on the Pacific Dawn that berthed in Sydney on Monday 25 May 2009. The other two people were identified contacts of this case. 

This brings the number of confirmed Swine Flu cases in Queensland to 20. 

The total of confirmed Human Swine Influenza cases in Australia as at 0500 AEST today to 302. Every Australian States and Territories now has at least one confirmed case. The breakdown is: ACT 4, NSW 57, SA 6, Qld 20, Tas 1, Vic 212, WA 1, NT 1

US: Swine flu, hysteria, and politics

Via Lew Rockwell.com: Swine Flu Hysteria to Be Launched Again. Excerpt:

The day that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared a national emergency due to a few swine flu outbreaks almost seems like a front-page story from The Onion. 

Since this "national emergency" lost traction and the swine flu hysteria became nothing more than pesky chattiness, the agents of hysteria have been frustrated at the result of their plans for mass hysteria. 

But Big Government ain't giving up on this one just yet. There's still hysteria to be spread for the purpose of 1) grabbing more powers for government due to the appearance of an extraordinary crisis that is sweeping America and the world, and, even more so, 2) there is still billions to be made for the vaccine producers in the Big Government-Big Pharma corporate state.

Well, the West Bengal media beat up their Communist government for not being hysterical enough about bird flu, so I guess it's fair for the US right wing to complain that Washington under Obama is entirely too hysterical. As Virchow famously said, "Politics is medicine conducted on a large scale."

As I noted in my review of Philip Alcabes's book Dread earlier this week, governments certainly do use disease outbreaks to extend their powers.

But they also do so after dramatic events like bombarding Fort Sumpter, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11. Why no complaints from the Lew Rockwells about those power grabs by Big Government?

The Big Government/Big Pharma idea sounds as much left-wing crank as right-wing crank. Does Mr. Rockwell want mom & pop pharmaceutical companies to start cranking out vaccines in their basements?

As a foe of Big Government, Mr. Rockwell might have been happier if the Bush Administration had sold off the army, navy and air force to private entrepreneurs and then awarded them the contract for the Iraq War. It certainly would have resulted in a much smaller government.

I take comments like Rockwell's as a reflection of an American society that still sees itself blissfully insulated from the sorrows of the non-American world. Other, lesser, browner people die of H5N1, or HIV/AIDS, or dengue, or American mines and cluster bombs. They provide entertainment and talking points to the Rockwells, but their sorrows have no real meaning as the Rockwells define "meaning."

In this the Lew Rockwells are like the citizens of Constantinople in 1453, who preferred to dispute fine theological points in the marketplace while the Turks were coming over the walls.

Australia: All ashore from the Pacific Dawn

Via Australia's ABC News: All passengers clear as flu ship docks in Sydney. Excerpt:

New South Wales health authorities say all the passengers on the cruise ship Pacific Dawn, which has docked in Sydney this morning, have been cleared of swine flu. 

New South Wales Chief Medical Officer Dr Kerry Chant says passengers will allowed to get off the ship as normal after it has finished docking at Darling Harbour. 

"I can confirm that the last test result came back as negative so we have no evidence of any swine influenza transmission to any passengers on board the cruise ship. So the normal disembarkation procedures will occur," Dr Chant said. 

Despite some experts making dire predictions about the spread of the swine flu, in recent days the Government and health officials have been trying to play down the threat it poses. 

Virologist Allan Hampson is the chairman of the Influenza Specialists Group. He says the swine flu is a threat, but it is one that is being kept in check for the time being. 

"We're still very definitely - to my mind - within that contained phase that the Government has declared, and a long way I think yet from moving into the sustained phase, which would be an admission that the virus is spreading out of control," he said. 

"A lot of the cases we've seen are in large clusters, where it's known where the virus has originated, including that cruise ship, which has been the source of a lot of cases."

India: Bird flu hits Bengal again

Via the Business Standard: Bird flu hits Bengal again. Excerpt:

Even as the threat of swine flu continues, a fresh outbreak of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (bird flu) has been reported from West Bengal.

About 20 backyard poultry birds were reported to have died on May 20 in the rural areas of Uttar Dinajpur in West Bengal, not far from the Assam and Bangladesh border. 

These birds were confirmed on May 25 to have died of the most virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu. All the samples tested by the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal, and the National Institute of Virology, Pune, had tested positive for this virus. 

The animal husbandry department formally notified the outbreak of bird flu in the area to the World Organisation of Animal Health(OIE) on May 28. It also told OIE that measures — curbs on the movement of poultry products, screening and culling of domestic poultry in a 3 km radius around the outbreak spots — have already been taken. 

No vaccination or treatment of the affected birds has been resorted to, as part of the government’s strategy to tackle bird flu. The places of infection would be suitably disinfected. 

The latest eruption of bird flu has occurred around six months after the last outbreak of this disease in Hajo, Rajabazar and Kamrup areas of Assam. About 325 birds had died of H5N1 infection at the time. Besides, over 52,000 birds in a 3 km area around these spots were culled.

Such outbreaks tend to cause a lot of political unrest in West Bengal, not to mention acrimony between India and Bangladesh as to whose fault it is.

And this does seem awfully late in the year for an outbreak to start.

Australia may abandon quarantine efforts

Via The Australian: Plan to treat, not contain swine flu. Excerpt:

Federal health authorities are considering abandoning the strategy of quarantining people who come into contact with swine flu, with the virus now outstripping Victorian attempts to contain it. 

Last night[May 31] there were 303 confirmed cases of swine flu in Australia of which 212 were in Victoria. In the past 24 hours 39 new cases were diagnosed in that state, and again the majority were school-aged children. 

As a result, six more schools will close today, bringing the total number of closures in Victoria to 11. Two secondary schools in far north Queensland will also close this week after two girls in Cairns tested positive for the virus over the weekend, bringing the Queensland tally to 20. 

Parents of Year 8 children at St Monica's and St Mary's in Cairns were yesterday briefed by public health officials on the infections. While health authorities were not giving any official reasons how the virus entered far north Queensland, it is believed that one of the girls recently returned from overseas, and she passed it on to the other girl. The mother of one of the girls has also tested positive.

Lessons from New Zealand

Via Stuff.co.nz: Swine flu alert goes out to schools. Excerpt:

Schools nationwide are on notice and Queenstown Airport is ramping up border controls as the global swine-flu alert grows. 

The Ministry of Health is tomorrow sending letters to schools outlining what swine flu "will mean for schools when the infection starts to spread in New Zealand". 

At least 11 schools in Australia had been closed,as confirmed cases there mushroomed to 303 yesterday. Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews said yesterday most of the new cases were children, aged five to 18. 

New Zealand's Ministry of Education renewed advice to schools last week to be prepared for swine flu. 

"The recent outbreaks of swine flu are just the latest reminder that the potential for a pandemic is real," the ministry said. 

"If you haven't done so lately, now is the time to check your school or [early childhood] service's pandemic plan. Ensure it's up to date and that everyone knows what to do if the virus appears at your school or ECE service." 

Principals' Federation president Ernie Buutveld said it was prudent for schools to review their processes. 

The rapid spread of the disease in Australia had led to concerns over Queenstown's preparedness for a winter influx of tourists. 

Health Ministry national incident controller Steve Brazier said that as confirmed cases of swine flu in Australia grew, it would become harder for New Zealand to contain the spread. 

Screening was already in place at Queenstown Airport but would be stepped up for the ski season, Brazier said. Buutveld said Queenstown schools were on notice.

That made me wonder how my own North Vancouver school district is preparing for a possible serious outbreak of H1N1. That led me to this page, which has some information and useful links, but nothing that looks like a district plan.

When I went to the BC School Trustees Association page, I found nothing at all. Nor at the Ministry of Education page. The BC government home page does have a link to H1N1 information, but nothing like a pandemic plan.

But we do have such a plan. You can find it at the BC Centre for Disease Control, where you'll see that the plan was updated as recently as October 2005...including Annex K, on communications planning.