For the curious - Swine Flu Thread

[Ahaugen]

does this mean the media-fueled viral death is not but a dud?

[Ekolter]

I read today that a lot of the flu information hotlines are shutting down due to low volume.

[Rkolter]

Look for the WHO to declare 2009 H1N1 Flu a full blown level 6 pandemic sometime today, or maybe tomorrow at the latest.

With over 1000 new cases in Austrailia, it has shown confirmed regional person to person transmission outside North America.

A level-6 pandemic describes geography and spread, not lethality or virulence.

[Rkolter]

... and here it is.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/sta ... index.html

[Rkolter]

It's been a while since I updated this thread, and I thought I'd just keep folks informed.

The WHO has stopped requiring countries to send in regular testing information. This is widely considered an unusual step. Their rationale was that the testing and reporting was a significant burden on many countries, and that we already know it's a level 6 pandemic the resources could better be used elsewhere. They have asked that any unusual spikes or deaths be reported.

This is concerning for a couple reasons - first, tracing how contageous the virus is will be more difficult, as will tracing outbreaks; as with the original outbreak, someone has to realize there's a new situation developing, for them to report it to the WHO. Second, samples coming in were showing resistance to Tamiflu. While the WHO will continue to get some samples in, they won't get them from as wide a range. A key example is Egypt, which has an outbreak of avian flu going on; samples from that country would be key to have, and they won't be coming, or coming in quantity.

The other reason this is concerning is political. It's widely understood the reason the WHO didn't turn this into a level-6 pandemic earlier was due to potential panic it would cause; panic that didn't happen. The fear is that they are no longer requesting reports, because the data showing millions of infections would scare people. True or not, the data is needed.

In other news on the H1N1 front, it has been found that the virus is particularly good at binding deep within the respiritory system, unlike standard flu which tends to lodge in the sinuses and upper tract. The virus can cause bleeding of the tract. It also binds with the digestive tract, causing diarhea. These two symptoms are similar to the 1918 pandemic.

As I mentioned earlier, there have been multiple cases of Tamiflu-resistant H1N1 now. Not a lot of cases, but multiple, and at least one from someone who was never treated with Tamiflu, meaning the virus may be replicating this mutation on it's own now.

The last big piece of news I have is from this news article:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534201,00.html

It may be from fox, but it fact-checks out. An unborn baby died of H1N1 infection that the mother had. This is very concerning and hopefully a full autopsy on the unborn baby will be done. Why? The flu has been shown to hit pregnant women particularly hard, and if the flu directly killed the baby, then it passed through the placenta. A flu virus that hits pregnant women and can directly infect the unborn baby would be very, very worrying.

Last reports of infection are still following the trend line for infections - there aren't any sudden major spikes. But, thanks to the WHO, we won't have good reporting of them anymore.