Swine flu vaccines delayed as US deaths climb
Pastor Dale Morgan
Swine flu vaccines delayed as US deaths climb*
Brace to be 'overwhelmed' by swine flu: WHO official
The northern hemisphere should brace for a tough fight against swine
flu, which "overwhelmed" hospitals in the southern hemisphere, a world
flu expert said Friday. Data presented at a three-day meeting of health
professionals here showed that "this virus causes severe pneumonia
compared to seasonal flu," World Health Organization (WHO) influenza
expert Nikki Shindo told reporters.
The influenza A(H1N1) virus, she warned, can cause potentially
life-threatening viral pneumonia far more often than the seasonal flu.
"This virus really likes the lower respiratory tract, which means this
virus is more likely to cause viral pneumonia than seasonal pneumonia,"
Shindo warned. "Of course, we don't have pre-existing immunity.
Therefore, we can expect more severe disease and hospitalization during
the upcoming influenza season."
Doctors from southern hemisphere countries told the meeting that swine
flu had "overwhelmed emergency rooms and especially intensive care units
because of the very severe patients who required special care," Shindo
said. Around 30 percent of severe cases had bacterial co-infections, she
added, urging that anti-viral treatments be administered in a timely
fashion to reduce severe disease. The antiviral drugs Tamiflu and
Relenza have been shown to be effective in treating the novel flu virus,
which has killed at least 4,735 people since it was first reported in
April in Mexico, according to a WHO tally. "Clinicians sometimes tend to
wait to get laboratory confirmation of H1N1 infection and this causes an
unfortunate delay in treatment," said Shindo.
"They have to decide on care based on epidemiological information and
patient observation," Shindo said, noting that severe progressive cases
in previously healthy adults tend to deteriorate from the third day of
the onset of illness. The Washington meeting gathered scores of
pathologists, virologists, clinicians and experts who shared data as
they tried to better understand the swine flu in order to "prevent
overwhelming mortality and severe disease," Shindo said.
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Oct 16, 2009
US health officials warned Friday that deliveries of swine flu vaccine
may be delayed as influenza deaths climbed above epidemic levels in most
states, hitting children particularly hard.
Eleven more children were reported to have died of flu in a single week,
with 10 of the pediatric deaths confirmed by laboratory tests as being
from H1N1 flu, Anne Schuchat, a senior official at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters.
Since April, when the swine flu outbreak began in Mexico, 86 children in
the United States have died of the new strain of H1N1, Schuchat said.
In the worst of the past three flu seasons in the United States, which
usually run from August to March, 88 children died.
As of the middle of this week, 11.4 million doses of H1N1 vaccine were
available and around eight million had been ordered by the states, where
innoculation clinics got under way last week.
Long lines have been reported outside the clinics, as parents rushed to
get their children -- one of the most at-risk groups -- innoculated
against swine flu.
Since August 30, 43 pediatric deaths from influenza have been reported
to the CDC, and laboratory tests have confirmed that 38 of those deaths
were caused by the H1N1 virus, Schuchat said.
Half of the confirmed pediatric H1N1 deaths since the end of August were
in children aged 12 to 17, and only slightly fewer -- 16 -- in five- to
11-year-olds.
When H1N1 was first reported in Mexico, from where it spread rapidly to
the United States, many of the pediatric deaths were in very young
children and infants.
Schuchat warned that deaths of older children from swine flu were likely
to increase as the autumn influenza season progresses.
Overall, deaths in the United States from flu have leapt above the
"epidemic threshold," and widespread disease from influenza has been
reported in 41 of the 50 states. The remainder of the states are seeing
higher-than-average rates of illness, Schuchat said.
"It's unprecedented for this time of year to have the whole country
seeing such high levels of activity," Schuchat said.
Most of the flu in the United States is H1N1 influenza.
But as deaths rose and flu spread, H1N1 vaccine manufacturers have
warned of slow-downs in production.
"It doesn't look like we're going to be able to make the estimates we
had projected by the end of this month," Schuchat said, scaling back
earlier projections of 40 million doses of vaccine by the end of October
to 28-30 million.
One reason for the production log-jam was the barrage of tests,
including tests for strength and purity, which the vaccine is subjected to.
"We are not cutting any corners in the safety of the production of this
vaccine or the testing and oversight of the vaccine," said Schuchat.
New York health care workers on Thursday took legal action to try to
halt the massive swine flu vaccination
program being rolled out across the United States, claiming the vaccines
have not been properly tested and are not safe.
The state of New York requires that doctors, nurses and other medical
professionals who have contact with patients must be vaccinated against
H1N1 flu, but for most people getting vaccinated against swine flu is
voluntary.
The CDC expects to roll out at least 800 million doses of swine flu
vaccine, with "the possibility of producing more as needed," Llelwyn
Grant, a spokesman for the federal health agency, said.
At least 4,735 people have died from swine flu infections since April,
according to the World Health Organization
.
Most deaths occurred in the Americas region, where 3,406 fatalities have
been reported.
US drug safety watchdog warns of bogus swine flu meds
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday warned consumers to
avoid buying medicines online to treat swine flu, saying one such
product contained nothing more than talc and over-the-counter fever-reducer.
The FDA raised the warning after some of its investigators purchased and
analyzed products represented online as Tamiflu (oseltamivir), one of
the anti-viral medicines that has been shown to be effective against
A(H1N1) flu.
"One of the orders, which arrived in an unmarked envelope with a
postmark from India, consisted of unlabeled, white tablets taped between
two pieces of paper," the food and drug safety watchdog said.
"The tablets were found to contain talc and acetaminophen (paracetamol),
but none of the active ingredient oseltamivir," it said.
In buying several of the products, the FDA investigators were not asked
to produce a doctor's prescription
.
The two antiviral drugs approved by the FDA for treatment and
prophylaxis of the 2009 A(H1N1) influenza virus, Tamiflu and Relenza,
require prescriptions.
"Medicines purchased from websites operating outside the law put
consumers at increased risk due to a higher potential that the products
will be counterfeit, impure, contaminated or have too little or too much
of the active ingredient," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said.
Patients who buy prescription drugs
from websites run an "increased risk of suffering life-threatening
adverse events, such as side effects from inappropriately using
prescription medications, dangerous drug interactions, contaminated
drugs, and impure or unknown ingredients found in unapproved drugs," the
FDA said.
Bogus drugs are more common in times of a public health emergency, such
as an influenza outbreak, when unlicensed manufacturers take advantage
of high demand for medications and try to turn a quick profit, the FDA
warned.