Swine flu raises fear of pandemic - Adults and Children

Nurses COVID

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I guess Hong Kong isn't going to wait until the WHO acts:

On Sunday, the government of Hong Kong announced some of the toughest measures yet of any jurisdiction in response to a swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the United States.

Officials urged residents not to travel to Mexico and ordered the immediate detention at a hospital of anyone who arrives with a fever and symptoms of a respiratory illness after traveling in the previous seven days through a city with a laboratory-confirmed outbreak.

The new policy, shaped by Hong Kong’s lasting scars as an epicenter of a SARS outbreak six years ago, has the potential to dampen air travel across the Pacific. Hong Kong has Asia’s busiest airport hub for international air travel, with Boeing 747s arriving around the clock from cities all over the United States and Canada, but not Mexico.

Ever since the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, Hong Kong has used infrared scanners to measure the facial temperature of all arrivals at its airport and border crossings with mainland China. Visitors are required to remove any hats to ensure accurate measurement, and children are checked with ear thermometers because the scanners are less reliable in measuring their faces.

Dr. Thomas Tsang, the controller of the Hong Kong government’s Center for Health Protection, said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon that any traveler who has passed through a city with laboratory-confirmed cases and who arrives in Hong Kong with a fever and respiratory symptoms will be intercepted by officials and sent to a hospital to await testing.

“Until that test is negative, we won’t allow him out,” he said.

An aide later said that the cut-off for having a fever would be 38 degrees Celsius, or 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, and that it would take two or three days to obtain test results.

Dr. York Chow, Hong Kong’s secretary for health and food, asked residents to watch the news for reports of which states in the United States have outbreaks and discouraged travel to these states, but reserved his strongest warning for travel to Mexico.

“Do not travel to Mexico unless it is absolutely necessary,” he said.

The Hong Kong government will also amend its health regulations in the next couple days to make it mandatory for any health professional to alert the government of any suspected cases of swine flu, he said.

Hong Kong should “prepare for the worst” if the swine flu virus develops a clear ability to pass from person to person, Dr. Chow said, while adding that the risk from the virus was low if this did not happen.

One legacy of SARS is that Hong Kong may now be better prepared for a flu pandemic than practically anywhere else on the world. Fearing that SARS might recur each winter, the city embarked on a building program to enlarge its capacity to isolate and treat those infected with communicable respiratory diseases.

Hong Kong now has 1,400 beds for this purpose each equipped with mechanical ventilators for treating those with severe pneumonia or other respiratory difficulties. But only 80 to 100 of these beds are needed on any given day, so they have been used until now for patients with other medical problems, Dr. Chow said.

The city has also expanded its flu research labs, already among the best in the world and leaders in tracking the H5N1 avian flu influenza virus. The so-called bird flu virus, which kills an unusually high share of its victims, has periodically triggered fears over the past decade about a possible pandemic but is different from the H1N1 swine flu influenza virus now causing illnesses in Mexico and the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/world/27flu.html?_r=1&hp

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afludiary at blogspot.com must be getting a lot of hits. The server keeps timing out on me.

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Specializes in oncology, acute rehab.

I just watched a news video report showing Mexican soldiers handing out masks to the public on the streets of Mexico City. The soldiers were touching the inside and outside of the masks to hand to people on the street, and touching the people's hands as they were handing them out, person after person after person. Some of the soldiers had their own masks just covering their mouths, not their noses, too.

I'm not sure handing out masks touched by the germs of so many hands and only covering the mouth is going to help much?

I saw the same video clip, noticed their lack of understanding and/or compliance, and was horrified! They handed out masks on sidewalks, on roadways, at transportation hubs...what an excellent way to spread disease!

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Specializes in OR, HH.

According to the link below the virus is treated with a couple of antivirals.

The swine flu is made up of four different viruses and the flu vaccine for this year may treat two of the four viruses.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30390176/

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Already hit Kansas DANGIT! Im glad they were already able to make a seed stock for this already though. Looks like we might be able to nip this in the butt.

Next time Kansas might think it better to "nip in the bud" than "nip in the butt"....

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.
I have to say all the news about a possible swine flu pandemic scares the living daylights out of me. I had a friend call me and say she is getting food, water, everything imaginable (face masks!) together. I wonder if this is all being blown out of proportion or just how worried I should be....Just wondering if anyone is preparing and what you are doing exactly?
I'm not preparing... I'm already prepared... for pan flu, major earthquake, bioterror, whatever... The time to prepare is BEFORE anything goes wrong, not at the outset.

I have sufficient stockpiles of food, water, money, meds, gasoline, tools, and useful supplies like rope, plastic, sleeping bags, gloves, masks, goggles... and, of course, ammunition (so that I can use my stuff rather than having it taken away by those with less foresight).

Regardless of how this plays out I hope that it engenders an attitude of preparedness and self-sufficiency in people rather than the "the government will take care of me" attitude appears to be so prevalent.

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I wonder how many people die each day from regular ol' flu?

PS I'm not being snarky-- I'm really curious.

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I read an interesting article on cytokine storm and why young otherwise healthy people die from the flu.

http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2009/04/swine_flu_and_deaths_in_health.php

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Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.

I'm wearing my N-95 mask as I type this.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.
I wonder how many people die each day from regular ol' flu?

PS I'm not being snarky-- I'm really curious.

The number that I've generally heard tossed around is ~35,000-45,000 annually (in the US). Sorry, I can't give you a reference but I'm sure you can Google it.

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Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

Well, and the next question becomes...as nurses, do you go to work or stay home? I've got some "coworkers" (and DANG but I use that word loosely) who suddenly had "family emergencies" during our norovirus outbreak and didn't come to work for 2 weeks -- and the "family emergency" spontaneously resolved the day the last noro patient went home. Yes, I know if I had a family member who was on chemo or immunocompromised I'd be stripping naked and bathing in Germ-X in the laundry room, with firm orders that they did not go in the laundry room until I'd cleaned it, but these folks didn't have that going on during noro....they just RAN.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Ortho.
I'm wearing my N-95 mask as I type this.

ROFLMAO:lol2:

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