Via Romanian Times: Swine flu deaths total 53.
A total of 58 new swine flu cases had been registered in the last 24 hours in Romania, health authorities announced today (Weds).
Most of them, 13, were in Buzau county, while 10 occurred in Timis county.
A person suffering from obesity died from swine flu, bringing the total number of deaths to 53.
The number of confirmed swine flu cases in Romania totals 5,626.
Via The Japan Times: H1N1 vaccine death probe set. Excerpt:
The health ministry will conduct an epidemiologic investigation into whether H1N1 influenza vaccinations can increase the death risk for people with serious chronic diseases, ministry officials said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare plans to begin the study next spring amid an increasing number of reports of deaths and serious side effects among the people who have received shots of domestically produced vaccines against the virus.
The ministry said postvaccination deaths have totaled 104, roughly 80 percent of whom are people aged 70 or older who had chronic diseases or disorders, while nearly 1,900 cases of side effects had been reported from medical institutions.
Via El Universal: Ssa: En abril, fin de pandemia de gripe A. [Health: In April, end of H1N1 pandemic] The full report, with my translation:
México, el primer país del mundo donde se detectó en abril pasado el virus de la influenza A H1N1, saldrá de la situación epidémica en tres o cuatro meses, declaró hoy el Comisionado Nacional para la prevención y control de la influenza de la secretaría de Salud, Alejandro Macías.
Alejandro Macías, National Commissioner for prevention and control of influenza in the Secretariat of Health, said today that Mexico–the first country in world where H1N1 was detected last April–will emerge from the epidemic in three or four months.
“La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) acaba de aclarar que la pandemia se va a mantener durante todo un año más. Pero yo creo que en México la pandemia se va a resolver por ahí de marzo o abril”, declaró en entrevista el alto funcionario de Salud.
“WHO has just said the pandemic will continue for another year,” the high Health executive said in an interview. “But I believe that in Mexico the pandemic will be over by March or April.”
Hasta el pasado 23 de diciembre en este país se habían registrado 68 mil 123 contagios y 823 defunciones, cifra esta última que representa cerca del 8% del total registrado por la OMS, agregó el alto funcionario.
As of December 23, the commissioner added, this country has recorded 68,123 infections and 823 deaths–8 percent of the total registered by WHO.
To which I can add that the most recent 141 cases and 23 deaths evidently occurred between December 21 and 23, according to the Health Secretariat’s own updates.
Via Egypt News: Egypt school students AH1N1 vaccination starts Saturday. Excerpt:
The Egyptian Ministries of Health and Education will start vaccinating school students next Saturday, in six different governorates against AH1N1, commonly known as Swine Flu.
Confirmed infections as of last Saturday were 10,056, as opposed to 7330 cases last week, of which 112 fatalities were reported.
This means that 97 percent have recovered from the virus, according to the health ministry.
The highest infection rate since the detection of the virus last June was reported during last week alone, with 1171 cases among school students.
Ida at Bird Flu Information Corner has published one of the most important H5N1 posts of the year: Indonesia ::: H5N1 situation update 2009. Excerpt:
Since 1 January to 28 December 2009, a total 20 H5N1 cases reported in Indonesia. Of those confirmed cases, 19 have been fatal. First H5N1 case was reported from Bogor on 9 January, and latest was reported from South Jakarta on 23 September 2009.
Total cumulative number of H5N1 in Indonesia since 2005 to 2009 is 161 with 134 deaths.
This information is broadcasted by Public Communication Center, General Secretary Ministry of Health.
This is more bird flu information from Indonesia than we’ve received in over a year. As brief as it is, it has some important implications.
The Indonesian case fatality ratio is now 83 percent, slightly higher than the 81 percent before the news blackout. This indicates the health system isn’t catching cases early, or isn’t dealing with them effectively.
The CFR for 2009 has been 95 percent. It may be that cases are breaking out in remote villages far from healthcare services, or that H5N1 has acquired greater lethality.
It also means the Ministry of Health has changed its policy, at least to some extent, and may start sharing H5N1 data with WHO on a regular basis—as it’s legally supposed to under the terms of its membership in WHO.
Mike Coston at Avian Flu Diary has some useful discussion of this news.
WHO has published Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 81. Excerpt:
As of 27 December 2009, worldwide more than 208 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 12220 deaths.
WHO is actively monitoring the progress of the pandemic through frequent consultations with the WHO Regional Offices and member states and through monitoring of multiple sources of data.
Situation update:
The most active areas of pandemic influenza transmission currently are in central and eastern Europe. Focal increases in rates of ILI/ARI during recent weeks were reported in at least three eastern European countries, Georgia, Montenegro, and Ukraine.
A high intensity of respiratory diseases activity with concurrent circulation of pandemic influenza persists in parts of southern and eastern Europe, particularly in Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, and the Urals Region of the Russian Federation.
In Western Europe, influenza transmission remains active and widespread, but overall disease activity has peaked. At least 13 of 21 countries (testing more than 20 sentinel samples) reported that 30% or more of sentinel specimens were positive for influenza, down from a peak of over 70%. All were influenza viruses detected in Western Europe were pandemic H1N1 2009, however, very small numbers of seasonal influenza viruses, making up less than 1% of all influenza viruses detected, were reported in Russia.
In addition, limited available data indicates that active, high intensity transmission is occurring in Northern African countries along the Mediterranean coast (Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt).
In Central Asia, limited data suggest that influenza virus circulation remains active, but transmission may have recently peaked in some places. In West Asia, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Oman, and Afghanistan also appear to have passed their peak period of transmission within the past month, though both areas continue to have some active transmission and levels of respiratory disease activity have not yet returned to baseline levels.
In East Asia, influenza transmission remains active but appears to be declining overall. Influenza/ILI activity continued to decline in Japan, in northern and southern China, Chinese Taipei, and Hong Kong SAR (China). Slight increases in ILI were reported in Mongolia after weeks of declining activity following a large peak of activity over one month ago.
In southern Asia, influenza activity continues to be intense, particularly in northern India, Nepal, and, Sri Lanka. Seasonal influenza A (H3N2) viruses are still being detected in very small numbers in China making up about 2.5% of the influenza A viruses detected there.
In North America, influenza transmission remains widespread but has declined substantially in all countries. In the US, sentinel outpatient ILI activity has returned to the seasonal baseline, and indicators of severity, including hospitalizations, paediatric mortality, and P&I mortality have declined substantially since peaking during late October.
Rates of hospitalization among cases aged 5-17 years and 18-49 year far exceeded rates observed during recent influenza seasons, while rates of hospitalizations among cases aged >65 years were far lower than those observed during recent influenza seasons.
In the tropical regions of Central and South America and the Caribbean, influenza transmission remains geographically widespread but overall disease activity has been declining or remains unchanged in most parts, except for focal increases in respiratory disease activity in a few countries.
In the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere, sporadic cases of pandemic influenza continued to be reported without evidence of sustained community transmission.
Via the Indian government’s Press Information Bureau: Consolidated status report of influenza A H1N1 influenza on 30 December 2009. It reports a total of 25,779 confirmed H1N1 cases and 919 deaths.
Via the Times of Malta: Radio personality succumbs to swine flu. Excerpt:
Maltese radio is mourning the loss of Justin Chircop, 32, who dedicated his life to exploring all the facets of the broadcasting world he had a passion for.
“He always dreamed about radio. He started as a DJ in nightclubs but eventually started cutting down on that when we got married and had our daughter Sarah… He worked very hard to achieve his dream,” Mr Chircop’s wife, Isabel, recalled.
His dream was to set up his own radio station, which he managed to do last June when Vibe FM was launched.
Mr Chircop died of complications caused by swine flu on Monday night. The government said he was suffering from a condition that could aggravate lung infections. He was the fourth person to die of the virus in Malta.
Via the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal: N.B. man dead after contracting antiviral-resistant H1N1. Excerpt:
A 27-year-old New Brunswick man is the first in the province to die after contracting an antiviral-resistant strain of H1N1, health officials in the province say.
Michael Thomas Neill of Quispamsis died at the Saint John Regional Hospital on Monday. Neill’s death is the eighth and youngest fatality associated with the H1N1 virus in the province, said Dr. Paul Van Buynder, New Brunswick’s deputy chief medical health officer.
Neill was also the first person in the province to have an H1N1 virus resistant to Tamiflu, the most common antiviral used to fight the infection, Van Buynder said.
Drug-resistant cases of H1N1 are rare and have only occurred several dozen times across the world, Van Buynder said.
Neill had a history of asthma and pneumonia but did not get the H1N1 vaccine, his parents say.
Via Xinhua: China to launch epidemiological investigation of swine flu. Excerpt:
China will launch a nationwide epidemiological investigation of A/H1N1 influenza next year in a bid to provide more scientific data for further prevention and control measures.
According to a circular released by the Ministry of Health Wednesday, the research will be focused on 12 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions including Beijing, Shandong and Henan. A total of 54,000 people — 4,500 for each province — will be surveyed.
The research will be carried out in three time periods: next January, from March to April and from August to September.
Experts with the ministry said that currently a large number of patients only have slight flu symptoms and many potential infection cases exist, which means the official number of flu cases can no longer reflect the actual epidemic situation in the country.
According to the experts, the country is in urgent need of understanding the infection level in different age groups in different time periods in order to map out further prevention and control plan.
Also, a serum epidemiological investigation will be launched next year across the country, sampling 400 people for each of the 31 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.