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May 8, '09 by lamazeteacherI found it interesting that another source of information recommended regular face masks for patients with A/H1N1, and respirator/N95 ones for health care workers.
It stands to reason that the face mask acts as a tissue to avoid splatter of microorganisms when coughing or sneezing, and the N95 filters the infectious particles out.
The N95 it said in the description of how to apply it and take it off, is not to be used more than once. The front of it should not be touched when putting it on or taking it off, just the elastic attachments.
It interfers with one's ability to work, oine article said. There was a picture of someone wearing it and trying to work at a desk, who said he felt hot with it on. - Guide
May 9, '09 by indigo girlQuote from lamazeteacherI received a letter from my employer today. The last paragraph said:I found it interesting that another source of information recommended regular face masks for patients with A/H1N1, and respirator/N95 ones for health care workers.
It stands to reason that the face mask acts as a tissue to avoid splatter of microorganisms when coughing or sneezing, and the N95 filters the infectious particles out.
The N95 it said in the description of how to apply it and take it off, is not to be used more than once. The front of it should not be touched when putting it on or taking it off, just the elastic attachments.
It interfers with one's ability to work, oine article said. There was a picture of someone wearing it and trying to work at a desk, who said he felt hot with it on.
Visitors who come to the hospital with fever or other flu s/s will be instructed to wear masks and to wash their hands frequently.
Isolation precautions will be used for those patients wioth suspected or confirmed cases of flu.
Conserve supplies of N-95 mask - when caring for a patient with TB, a mask can be removed and re-used for up to 12 hours. This can't be done for flu patients so conserving our supply now will be helpful.lamazeteacher likes this. - GuideMay 9, '09 by indigo girlWHO H1N1 Update # 23
http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2009/0...update-23.html
Quote from afludiary.blogspot.com
As more and more countries become able to test for the new A/H1N1 virus, the number of confirmed cases (and countries affected) continues to rise.
This morning, the `confirmed count’ is 3440 people in 29 countries. Twenty-four hours ago, those numbers were 2384 cases in 24 countries.
While the virus is still, obviously, spreading – this nearly 50% jump in cases in one day really reflects that many backlogged test results are coming available.
And of course, the number of cases being reported here are just the confirmed cases. If you add in probable and suspected cases, the numbers escalate greatly.lamazeteacher likes this. - GuideMay 9, '09 by indigo girlThe Real Reason Why Egypt Wants to Kill All the Pigs
http://www.scottmcpherson.net/journa...-the-pigs.html
Scott McPherson is the Chief Information Officer of the Florida House of Representatives.
I agree with he is saying here, and I am thinking that maybe the Egyptians are right much as I disliked their plan to slaughter all of these animals. And, what will they do with the 300,000 carcasses?
Quote from www.scottmcpherson.net
What I want to talk about now is the situation in Egypt, and why the Egyptian government made the controversial move to slaughter all its pigs virtually overnight. Something feels Biblical in that decision, you know. It was met with hostility and violent demonstrations across the nation. Only Christians eat pork there, and the hogs slaughtered were destined only for Egyptian Christian dinnertables.
But I believe the Egyptian government had its own experience and that of Indonesia on its mind when it made the decision. The Egyptian government has been looking for a reason to wipe out the hog population since 2008, because there was and is growing concern that Egyptian pigs had become reservoirs for H5N1.
...The Egyptian government is scared to death that H1N1 will come around and reassort with H5N1, which they believe to possibly be endemic in their pig population. And if you look at the continuing increase in suspected and confirmed Egyptian H5N1 human bird flu cases, I think you'd agree there is much to be concerned about.
Likewise, the situation in Indonesia and in China also involoves informed speculation on behalf of animal and human influenza researchers that H5N1 may have made a small foothold in the hog populations there. Especially Indonesia, which remains Bird Flu Central for human cases and potential pandemic explosion, despite the competition from ongoing Egyptian human infections. Researchers already know that some 20% of the stray cat population in Indonesia has H5N1 antibodies. Likewise, some hogs in Indonesia have tested positive for H5N! antibodies. From the Website FluWiki, from2006:
Cat H5N1 sequences in Indonesia are apparently more similar to H5N1 sequences from humans than either are to H5N1 sequences from birds. What is the most logical interpretation of these results? I submit that there may be a mammalian reservoir for H5N1 in Indonesia and other countries and that H5N1 is under selection to adapt to mammals in this reservoir. Further, at least some of the human cases may be due to mammal-to-human infections. (See also Dr. Jeremijenko’s post at 23:14 in this thread, and here and here). In the recent large cluster of human cases in Indonesia, no infections of poultry were found in close proximity to the village where the outbreak occured. However, pigs with antibodies to H5N1 were found in this region reference. H5N1 infections in pigs would be particularly worrisome as these animals could serve as mixing vessels for the formation of a human-adapted H5N1 strain. (bold mine)
That is what everyone is worried about. That is the Elephant in the Room. That is why no one in Geneva, Atlanta or anywhere else is overreacting about this swH1H1 epidemic.lamazeteacher likes this. - May 9, '09 by lamazeteacherIndigo Girl:
From
Here it is! From Eurosurveillance volume 18 issue 14
[7].There is increasing concern that undetected H5N1 cases may be
occurring in Egypt, given the evident anomalies in observed age-
specific and sex-specific case incidence {female}and fatality rates. Although there appears to be no compelling evidence for human-to-human transmission of H5N1 in Egypt, family clusters have been observed inEgypt, and H5N1 clusters involving highly probable human-to-human transmission have been documented in China, Thailand, Viet Nam, Indonesia, and Pakistan
With the theory that Egyptian pigs have been and are reservoirs for H5N1, their action to kill all their swine is validated and appreciated!Last edit by lamazeteacher on May 9, '09 : Reason: additionindigo girl likes this. -
May 10, '09 by AtomicWomanFrom Medscape Medical News:
Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local public health agencies have released detailed clinical information on the first 642 US cases in the current swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus outbreak.
The results, published online May 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine NEJM), show that in addition to the common influenza signs of fever, cough, and sore throat, one fourth of cases present with diarrhea and another one fourth present with vomiting.
Clinicians and patients should therefore be on the lookout for cases bearing both the customary signs of seasonal influenza and atypical gastrointestinal signs, said lead author Fatima S. Dawood, MD, from the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the CDC, during a media briefing.
The investigators note that "both self-limited illness and severe outcomes, including respiratory failure and death, have been observed among identified patients, a wide clinical spectrum similar to that seen among persons infected with earlier strains of swine-origin influenza viruses."
Genetic analysis shows that the current infections are caused by H1 viruses derived from Eurasian rather than North American swine flu lineages, the authors say.
In a related report, also published online in the NEJM, CDC and state and city health authorities describe a small series of sporadic human influenza cases caused by triple-reassortment viruses that occurred before the current outbreak and that appeared to be transmitted from pigs to humans. They advise clinicians to consider animal influenza when patients present with a febrile respiratory illness and recent history of exposure to swine, poultry, or wild birds. They caution that sporadic cases of triple-assortment influenza infections in humans who have had contact with pigs may be sentinels for a larger outbreak.
Although the 2 groups of viruses behave very differently in their infective potential, "both viruses are H1 hemagglutinin viruses, which appeared in humans and swine in 1918 and have subsequently evolved, in both species, into divergent H1 viruses," writes Robert B. Belshe, MD, from the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Saint Louis University in Missouri, in an accompanying editorial.
"The current situation is not '1918 again,' it is '1918 continued,' in that we are still being infected with remnants of the 1918 pandemic influenza virus," Dr. Belshe writes.
Continue article here (it's considerably longer):
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...9066&src=nldne (you may need to register to read it)
The discussion of the sporadic outbreaks in the article is unnerving. If anyone can't read the entire article, please PM me and I'll send it to you. I don't want to post it here, due to copyright concerns. - May 10, '09 by meme048The interesting thing about this table, is Egypt reporting 17 cases this year but no deaths. Either they've figured out how to treat it better or there not reporting all the cases.
Maria
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian.../en/index.html - GuideMay 10, '09 by indigo girlQuote from meme048It's very interesting, indeed because the CFR has been running at over 60% for H5N1, and now this year, we have seen a whole new demographic in Egypt. These recent cases are all toddlers with mild cases of bird flu. The adults have been primarily young women under age 40, who continue to die despite treatment with Tamiflu. No one has yet figured out why we are seeing all of these infected little kids, and why they are surviving. This was all rather alarming news just before swine flu hit the news.The interesting thing about this table, is Egypt reporting 17 cases this year but no deaths. Either they've figured out how to treat it better or there not reporting all the cases.
Maria
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian.../en/index.html
This major change in the age and prognosis of victims had prompted the WHO to send in a team to Egypt to try to find out why. This may not really be a good change despite the survival of the cases. Here are some posts written in early April discussing this. See posts near the bottom of that page. We do not have any answers yet, btw.
http://allnurses.com/pandemic-flu-fo...932-page8.html - GuideMay 10, '09 by indigo girlEgyptian girl contracts bird flu, 69th case
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LA506331.htm
Quote from www.alertnet.org
A five-year-old Egyptian girl has contracted the highly pathogenic bird flu virus after coming into contact with infected birds, the state news agency MENA reported on Sunday.
The case brings to 69 the number of people confirmed to have contracted the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Egypt, which has been hit harder than any another country outside Asia. - GuideMay 10, '09 by indigo girlhttp://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2...ital-bali.html
This is something I hoped that we would never see, swine flu in the country with the greatest number of H5N1 bird flu cases on the planet. It is alarming to think of this very transmissible virus loose in Indonesia where bird flu is endemic with a CFR of over 80% in that country. All it would take is for one person to be co-infected with both swine flu, and bird flu for a worse case scenario of viral reasssortment which could then produce a very transmissible and very virulent new virus.
Let us hope that she did not infect anyone else on that plane. Even better, let's hope that she tests negative.
Quote from www.thejakartapost.comUPDATE
A Dutch tourist arriving in Bali with flu-like symptoms was admitted to hospital in Denpasar for treatment, tempointeraktif.com reported Sunday.
Michele Van Dorssen, a Malaysia Airlines passenger, arrived Sunday from the Netherlands via Kuala Lumpur with a fever and nausea.
Fearing she was sick with the H1N1 strain of flu, officials at Ngurah Rai International Airport immediately took her to Sanglah Hospital in Denpasar.
“We're still examining her and waiting for the lab results, because [the H1N1 flu virus] has an incubation period of three to five days,” said the hospital's Dr. Ken Wirasandhi.
The Indonesians are saying that she tested negative.Last edit by indigo girl on May 13, '09
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