News Reports for November 2, 2012

NY: Early outbreak of influenza confirmed in Carthage area

http://www.watertowndailytimes...

The Jefferson County Public Health Service has reported 47 cases of Influenza A and influenza-like illness in the Carthage area.

Faith E. Lustik, a health planner with the department, said the first reported case was recorded Oct. 13. (snip) "It's very rare to see the flu this early," she added.  (snip) The cases, Ms. Lustik added, consist of nearly half being children. (continued)

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by: AlohaOR @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 03:36:23 AM UTC

Hi AlohaOR

Evidently, your article was moved to a different link after you posted it. I found it now located here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/1118...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 06:17:10 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks, Carol (n/t)

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by: AlohaOR @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 07:10:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

US: Flu Appearing in ND (North Dakota)

As of this week, 12 cases of the flu have been reported in North Dakota, and the State Health Department wants to remind you that it's not too late to get a flu shot. The strain of flu that they've seen so far is one that the flu shot protects against.

Video: http://www.valleynewslive.com/...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 06:42:36 AM UTC

India: H1N1 death amid dengue control (Maharashtra)

Even as the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) health authorities identified 344 mosquito breeding sites on Thursday as part of its wardwise container survey, another swine flu (H1N1 virus) death reported from the city has the civic body stepping up surveillance measures.

A 42-year-old man from Navi Peth died due to H1N1 virus on October 31, Dr S T Pardeshi, acting chief medical officer, PMC said. Pardeshi said the victim did not avail immediately treatment when he had symptoms from October 10. However, when he suffered from breathlessness he was admitted to a local hospital after which he was shifted to Ruby Hall Clinic. His throat swab tested positive for swine flu on October 18. He succumbed to the viral infection and died of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

This is the 27th death due to swine flu reported by PMC health authorities since April this year. At present eight people are admitted to various hospital wards. Out of a total 1.6 lakh people screened for swine flu since April, a total of 29,626 were given Tamiflu tablets and out of 3,428 throat swabs sent for examination to National Institute of Virology a total of 470 tested positive for H1N1 virus. Continued: http://www.indianexpress.com/n...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 06:50:18 AM UTC

India: Bird flu nodal centre notified (Karnataka)

The National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has identified the State-run Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) as a nodal centre for isolation and treatment of bird flu cases, if detected.

(Snip)

Dr. Chowdhury told The Hindu RGICD had been identified as the nodal centre for isolation and treatment of bird flu cases. "We will soon issue a notification in this regard," he said.

RGICD Director Shashidhar Buggi, pointing out that no human case of bird flu had been detected so far, said the hospital was prepared to handle any emergency.

(Snip)

(Snip) authorities were now on the lookout for chicken owned by families within the 1-km radius of CPDO, which has been declared as the culling zone. "The blood and cloacal samples collected from birds outside the CPDO premises have tested negative for H5N1. The movement of poultry and poultry products, banned to and from the 10-km surveillance zone till November 15, will be reviewed if the situation demands," Mr. Jannu said and added that the academic calendar of the school on the CPDO campus, now closed, will be rescheduled. http://www.thehindu.com/news/c...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 07:02:20 AM UTC

Study: Rapid flu tests do best at high viral loads

Nov 1, 2012 (CIDRAP News) - Commercially available rapid influenza diagnostic tests (RIDTs) detected common virus strains at high concentrations fairly well but performed variably at lower concentrations, an evaluation of all 11 Food and Drug Administration-approved RIDTs showed.

Writing in today's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Biological Advanced Research and Development Authority, and the Medical College of Wisconsin said they used 23 recently circulating flu viruses under identical lab conditions to assess each RIDT.

The viruses included 4 pandemic 2009 H1N1 (pH1N1) strains, 6 seasonal H1N1 (sH1N1), 6 H3N2 (not the variant swine-origin strains linked to US fairs this summer and fall), and 7 influenza B (4 from the Victoria and 3 from the Yamagata lineages).

Before the 2009 pH1N1 pandemic, evaluations of RIDTs found sensitivities ranging from 27% to 61% compared with real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction, the gold standard for identifying flu strains, according to the report. And during the pandemic the CDC reported that the sensitivities of three commonly used RIDTs ranged from 40% to 69% and recommended that clinicians use caution when interpreting RIDT results.

RIDTs are simple to use and provide results in less than 15 minutes, today's report said. The kits detect the influenza virus nucleoprotein (NP) antigen. Continued: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidr...  

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 07:08:37 AM UTC

India: Four cases of H1N1 reported from district (Tamil Nadu)

COIMBATORE: Four cases of H1N1 have been reported in Coimbatore since Wednesday. While two cases were registered in a private hospital, one case was admitted in the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) and one was house quarantined since he was not in critical condition. On Wednesday, two cases of H1N1 were registered at G Kuppusamy Naidu Memorial hospital.

An 82-year-old man from Erode and another 45-year-old woman from Tirupur has tested positive and are undergoing treatment at the hospital. While two cases tested positive at the CMCH. A 19-year-old boy tested positive but was house quarantined since he was not in critical condition (Snip) 43-year-old woman (Snip) was admitted in the hospital with breathing problems (Snip)  http://timesofindia.indiatimes...
 

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 07:37:17 AM UTC

India: Mutated viruses transmitted to humans more easily

While the officials of animal husbandry & fisheries department are stressing on checking the spread of the avian influenza to within Hesaraghatta, experts say it is important to know the extent of mutation of the virus that affected the chickens, turkeys, ducks and emus to put in place adequate measures.

Experts say mutated viruses have a higher capacity to infect birds and humans, and even as bird to human transmission is rare, the authorities are ignorant about the capacity of a mutated virus to infect human at a faster rate than before.

"The only implication of mutation is the lack of immunity among people. This means that a mutated virus has a higher capacity of affecting many more compared to the original virus. However, whether the mutated virus would be more dangerous is debatable (in the absence of precisely knowing what the mutation is)," said Dr Hemanth HR, consultant, critical care medicine, BGS Global Hospital.

However, the doctor assures that this doesn't call for worry as human-to-human transmission of avian flu virus is, as of now, known to be extremely rare. "Avian flu gets transmitted from bird-to-bird easily. Even a bird-to-human transmission is not uncommon, specially among people who work in the poultry," he said.

However, scientists at High Security Animal Disease Laboratory who spoke to DNA on condition of anonymity, said as they were not able to establish the extent of mutation, it would be difficult to determine the capacity of the virus to cause human infections and also precisely how it would do that.

But there is hope. Whether the virus is mutated or not, the treatment largely remains the same. "While more people are susceptible to a mutated virus, when it comes to treatment, both the original and mutated virus are treated similarly as per anti-viral medications are concerned. However, if there are vaccines available, it will be different for original and mutated virus," said Dr Rajeev Moger, consultant, internal medicine, Apollo Hospitals.

HSADL scientists, too, say that existing vaccines were developed using strains of the original H5N1 avian influenza virus. But the virus had much mutated after that, rendering those vaccines useless. Continued: http://www.dnaindia.com/bangal...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 20:14:41 PM UTC

India: Birdflu impact: Cleaning operations at Central Poultry Farm in Bangalore (Karnataka)

Bangalore, Nov. 2: Fifteen Rapid Response teams were today deployed for cleaning the sheds in the Central Poultry Farm in Hesarghatta where avian influenza claimed the lives of 3,600 turkeys in the last fortnight (Snip).

"Cleaning activity is in progress. Since, all the birds had been culled, there were no bird available in one km radius for culling," (Snip).

Surveillance work in a 10-km radius was in progress and 74 serum samples and 74 cloacal samples were collected and submitted to the laboratory for investigation.

(Snip)

Meanwhile, a report from Erode in neighbouring Tamil Nadu said animal husbandry officials screened vehicles from Karnataka carrying poultry feed for the poultry farms in the district. http://www.thehindubusinesslin...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Fri Nov 02, 2012 at 20:23:58 PM UTC

Please post new news stories to...

News Reports for November 3, 2012

Thank you!

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. --Unknown

     

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by: Carol@SC @ Sat Nov 03, 2012 at 05:55:29 AM UTC