H1N1 boy, 10, died of organ failure
A 10-year-old boy died from organ failure after developing severe pneumonia as a result of swine flu, an inquest has heard.
Angus Hardie, from Hockley, Essex, was a "healthy, fit and well child" - one of twins - before being taken seriously ill last year, the hearing was told.
He was admitted to Southend Hospital on October 3 suffering from a headache, fever and diarrhoea and vomiting. His condition was so serious he was transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London for specialist treatment, but he failed to improve and died on October 6.
Consultant paediatric pathologist Irene Scheimberg, who carried out a post-mortem examination, gave the cause of Angus's death as multiple organ failure, bronchopneumonia and influenza H1N1.
Source: Google news - The Press Association
Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hnieTISxmBIjTncFtYwkupOOFZZw
Research
Influenza and H1N1 Bad for Your Heart
Another reason to get a flu shot: The virus may cause heart damage.
Harvard Health Letters
If you haven't gotten your flu shot yet, what are you waiting for? The hour or so it would take is nothing compared with the time you might spend fighting the flu or something worse - like recovering from the heart attack it could trigger.
As of early October 2009, much of the focus has been on swine flu (more formally called H1N1 flu). That's understandable. H1N1 is new, and no one knows how much damage it will cause. But the "regular" flu isn't something to sneeze at. Seasonal flu kills about 36,000 people each year in the United States, hospitalizes more than 200,000, and costs us more than $10 billion in direct medical expenses and lost productivity.
Seasonal flu and H1N1 flu are different in some ways and similar in others. One of the similarities is that both may be hard on the heart. Getting vaccinated against seasonal flu and swine flu is good insurance for your health and heart.
Source: WHOTV
Read more: http://www.whotv.com/health/sns-health-swine-flu-heart,0,3895492.story
Comment
The Intellectual Property Fight That Could Kill Millions
The hothouse environment of Indonesia is ground zero for a potential bird flu pandemic. But a fight over ownership of flu genes is blocking the efforts to track deadly infections on the move.
by Delthia Ricks
Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali is best known as a tourist hub, the bustling port of entry to a volcanic paradise. But when Indonesian authorities learned that a Mexican swine flu had gone global, that hub became a surreal microcosm of flu politics. Each arriving passenger was scanned for fever. A Dutch woman, apparently ill while in flight, was greeted by health workers in hazmat suits and whisked into quarantine while fellow passengers were spritzed with disinfectant. The woman was found to have nothing more than a bad sore throat, according to news reports, but that did not change a thing. The controversial head of the Indonesian Health Ministry, physician Siti Supari, quarantined sick foreigners at warp speed. Already embroiled in a battle royal with the world’s superpowers over another flu virus—the ultra-lethal bird flu—Supari did not have time to deal with a new enemy. She would do everything possible, she told her fellow citizens, to protect them from the new pathogen spawned by a pig.
The recent frenzy in Bali stood in notable contrast to the research paralysis that has gripped this tropical archipelago since late 2006, when Supari declared that flu viruses circulating in Indonesia belonged to her government alone. It was a bizarre, 21st-century twist on an age-old intellectual property argument. Developing nations had long fought passionately over plant and native human genes, but no one had ever before staked claim to microbes that birds could carry anywhere. Yet the 57-year-old health minister insisted she had cause: Rich Western nations were patenting the viral genomes, then using the information to create vaccines that were sold for profit to other Western powers while benefiting Indonesia not at all.
If Supari had stopped there, she might have garnered real support. But she ramped up the rhetoric, launching a barrage of fear bombs by accusing the United States of genetically engineering H1N1 (the swine flu virus) and H5N1 (the bird flu pathogen) as biological weapons. Wielding those charges, she flouted agreements with the World Health Organization (WHO), refusing to share samples from Indonesians infected with avian influenza—specimens the rest of the world desperately needs to track a virus on the move.
Source: Discover Magazine
Read more: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/dec/28-intellectual-property-fight-that-could-kill-millions
Photo
A vaccine against the A(H1N1) or swine flu is prepared at a hospital in Prague, Czech Republic in 2009. Canada announced Thursday it has donated five million swine flu vaccine doses and six million Canadian dollars (5.6 million US) to the World Health Organization for its pandemic relief efforts.
Source: AFP/File/Matej Divizna
Quote
"But we do not wait until [these global virus outbreaks] have developed and we see that lots of people are dying. What we try and do is take preventive actions. If we are successful no-one will die, no-one will notice anything."
Swine Flu Warning Justified Says WHO
Source: Silobreaker - Medindia
Read more: http://www.medindia.net/news/Swine-Flu-Warning-Justified-Says-WHO-64269-1.htm
News Flash
The Straits Times
THE Health Ministry will be buying about one million doses of H5N1 avian flu pre-pandemic vaccine soon.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan revealed yesterday that his ministry is evaluating a tender to stock up on the vaccine.
A/H1N1 epidemic remains moderate in France
Xinhua
The spread of the A/H1N1 flu continues in France but at a moderate pace, the French health surveillance institute InVS said Thursday. ...
Canada to donate H1N1 vaccine to WHO
Globe and Mail
A registered nurse injects a dose of the H1N1 flu vaccine at a Toronto health clinic on Thursday, October 29, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS Globe and Mail Update ...
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