It has been my own personal project to follow H5N1 for the last 3 years simply because it interests me. Attracted to this type of information like a magnet, I've been watching this relatively new influenza virus to see where it will go, how it will change itself, and possibly change our world. I have followed its country by country outbreaks, and watched for the important viral mutations such drug resistance or changes that allowed it to more specifically target mammals.
Keeping in mind at all times that we will be cleared impacted as HCW, as well as being members of our communities, and having families of our own to care for, I wanted to start the new year by opening a single focused pandemic thread that would also look at what we are doing nationally to prepare for a future pandemic. Is this the virus to spark the next pandemic? No one can answer that question. We can look back at the past to the last few pandemics, and in particular to the most devastating one in 1918, and extrapolate useful information about them, but we can not predict the future. We can only make comparisons with our situation now, and learn what worked to lessen morbidity and mortality in those past events. And, we can look at those other viruses, and compare them with what we are seeing now. For example, H5N1 is a Type A virus. We know that all pandemics are caused by Type A viruses. It is also an avian virus. The deadly 1918 virus, H1N1 was also an avian virus.
For this thread, as in the previous threads, I will be making use of news sources, scientific studies, govt bulletins such as the MMR, as well as flu forums and blogs devoted to this subject for my sources. Because press information, particularly the foreign press, is not always available for later access when I am looking back to check recent historical information, the use of these blogs and forums are important because archived information quoting the media and all other sources is always fully and easily available there with no worries about information disappearing or no longer being available. They also fully document their sources or I would not be using them.
With this link from Avian Flu Diary, a well researched source that I highly recommend, we can read the words of outgoing HHS Secretary Leavitt on our state of preparedness. Leavitt has done an admirable job during his tenure, but admits that there is much left to do.
A scant 33 months ago, I sent my first message about a race that HHS had just begun. As I said then, it was a race against a fast-moving virulent virus with the potential to cause an influenza pandemic. Since then, we have mobilized experts and resources across the country and around the world. I now send you this final message, as I look back at the unprecedented progress we have made in energizing a national pandemic influenza preparedness movement in those 33 months.
Today, many people mistakenly think influenza pandemics are a thing of the past, but influenza has struck hard in the era of modern medicine – much harder than most people realize. And it will strike again. Pandemics are hard things to talk about. When one discusses them in advance, it sounds alarmist. After a pandemic starts, no matter how much preparation has been done, it will be inadequate.
The news from Japan is of interest not because of the fact that H1N1 is present, and appears to be spreading, but more so for the fervor with which they are trying to stop this disease from spreading. I think perhaps that they may slow its spread, and that may be the best that anyone can do. Stopping it is probably impossible.
Japan's health ministry confirmed the first domestic case of infection with the H1N1 strain of influenza A virus on Saturday morning.
The total infection cases have reached 12 in Japan.
Japan has announced plans to cancel festivals and shut down dozens of schools in the Kobe region in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading.
With 8 students already testing positive and additional students suspected of being infected in Kobe and nearby Osaka, there may already be a significant number of cases in the community.
Even if containment is successful this time, with the virus circulating globally, Japan (like all nations) faces the problem of reintroduction of the virus into their country by international travelers.
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD girl on Monday died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, bringing to 27 the number of deaths from the disease in Egypt, the health ministry said.
'Nada al-Ahmed Reda Yunes, four years, from the Nile Delta town of Meet Ghamr died after contracting the disease", ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman Shahin told the official MENA news agency.
The girl started showing symptoms on May 9 but was only taken to hospital on Sunday, Mr Shahin said.
She tested positive for the disease on Monday and died the same day.
Her case brings to 72 the number of people infected with avian influenza in Egypt. She is the 27th person to die from disease since it was first identified in the country in 2006.
Poverty in Egypt and the lack of available healthcare demonstrates why more afflicted and dying patients are in "developing" countries. Hospitals are a "last ditch" recourse for people there.
At the end of the report they give numbers of needed PPE per worker, based on an estimate of 90,000,000 persons with some varying degree of illness during a surge period. The data they used to extrapolate these numbers are based on the 1918 outbreak.
Staff with no or infrequent patient exposure and/or direct contact (e.g., fiscal personnel)
1 disposable N95 respirator per exposure or contact
1 disposable gown per contact
1 pair of disposable gloves per contact
Staff with prolonged periods of exposure and/or direct patient contact (e.g., nurses, physicians)
1 reusable* N95 respirator per outbreak (MY NOTE: resusable respirators are the large, half-face, rubber masks with replaceable filters)
1 pair of goggles per outbreak
1 pair of disposable gloves per contact
1 disposable gown per contact
2 disposable respirator cartridges per month
Staff with prolonged periods of exposure but no or infrequent direct contact with patients (e.g., emergency department clerk)
1 reusable† N95 respirator per outbreak
1 pair of goggles per outbreak
1 disposable gown per shift
1 pair of disposable gloves per contact
2 disposable respirator cartridges per month
US Department of Health and Human Services assumptions
My hospital already sent us a memo that included a warning about conserving N95 masks. We can reuse them with TB cases but not with flu cases. I get the feeling that we will run out of masks in a surge...
I was shocked to hear a man in the Navy tell me yesterday, that the (average member of) the armed forces is not being given any information about the need (or how) to protect themselves and their families on base or elsewhere, during this pandemic!
My hospital already sent us a memo that included a warning about conserving N95 masks. We can reuse them with TB cases but not with flu cases. I get the feeling that we will run out of masks in a surge...
I agree, masks will go quickly. It's one thing to have masks for all those on the floor, but another to have masks for all in the building. The reusable respirators are the way to go for doctors and nurses who are going to be seeing pt after pt after pt.
I've been stocking up on gloves, and I've also got 3 boxes of nitriles to go with my first aid kit in my car. I imagine gloves, gowns, will be in abundance, but masks are more expensive and lately have been hard to locate in bulk unless you go through a contractor distributor or health care supply. As a PCT, I will want to be able to have a supply on hand to deal with taking care of family at home, but obviously also so I can continue to work if there's a shortage of supplies.
Two Egyptian boys have contracted the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus, bringing the total number of cases in the most populous Arab country to 74, state news agency MENA said on Wednesday.
Egypt, hit harder by bird flu than any other country outside Asia, has seen a surge in cases in recent weeks with 14 new human infections and four deaths reported since April 1 -- more than the country saw in all of 2008.
The children -- a 4-year-old boy from Daqahlia in the Nile Delta and a 3-year-old boy from Sohag in the south -- were admitted to hospital with high fever and were in a stable condition after being treated with Tamiflu, MENA said.
It quoted a health ministry spokesman as saying that both boys had been in contact with birds suspected of being infected with the disease.
The new infections came just days after a 4-year-old girl died of the virus on Monday. Overall, 27 Egyptians have died after contracting the virus.
Swine flu is now being reported in Beijing according to WHO. No one knows what will happen if the this virus meets up with bird flu. Meanwhile, H5N1 is still present in migratory birds posing a threat to poultry and thus to people. It is an ongoing battle.
Altogether 121 migratory birds were found dead near the Genggahai Lake of Gonghe County in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Hainan on May 8. They tested H5N1 positive at China's National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory on Sunday.
As of Wednesday, the number of dead birds had climbed to 200, the provincial animal epidemic prevention and treatment department said in a press release.
It said Gonghe County had killed 21,000 poultry and vaccinated another 23,000 to avoid infection, though no signs of bird flu had been observed on any farm so far.
These interviews on pandemic influenza are archived also. Access provided in this link:
Today (May 26th) at 4pm EDT Dr. Michael Osterholm of CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy) will be interviewed on Radio Sandy Springs' Infectious Disease Hour, hosted by David Moxley.
The interview will be conducted by Sharon Sanders of FluTrackers, and it will take up the last half of the hour.
The show will air again next Monday (June 1st), at 4 pm as well.
Radio Sandy Springs 1620 AM, is a low-powered Atlanta based talk radio station that simulcasts on the Internet.
Hopefully fall will find both avian and swine flu in North Korea, and keep that country involved in flu prevention programs, rather than testing nuclear arms, there. I never wish illness on others, but in this case.......
The problem here, in regard to the pandemic, is that so much information has been absorbed by people, that they're supersaturated with it, and seem to be ignoring it and going about their activities in crowded places. The literal fallout from Memorial Day participation at amusement and water parks Then I read a very disturbing internet article regarding the budget cuts taken by Health Departrments everywhere in the USA, to the point that they will be understaffed and under stocked to deal with sizable numbers of stricken patients, or an effective vaccine prevention activity. This is absolutely unbelievable.
President Obama has asked congress to fund the necessary response programs. Please urge your representatives in government to approve that!
indigo girl
5,173 Posts
http://afludiary.blogspot.com/2009/05/japan-confirms-more-h1n1-infections.html
The news from Japan is of interest not because of the fact that H1N1 is present, and appears to be spreading, but more so for the fervor with which they are trying to stop this disease from spreading. I think perhaps that they may slow its spread, and that may be the best that anyone can do. Stopping it is probably impossible.