Swine flu continues slow climb on college campuses

Influenza-like illnesses on college campuses, generally assumed to be primarily pandemic H1N1 influenza, grew slightly during the week ending Nov. 6, with 8,951 new cases reported -- an increase of 1% from the previous week. There were 15 hospitalizations on the 295 colleges and universities reporting to the American College Health Assn. and still  no deaths. Ninety-eight percent of the campuses reported activity, compared to 97% the week before.

In other swine flu news:

-- The World Health Organization on Thursday changed its guidelines for administering antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, urging that the drug be given to severely ill patients even before the presence of the swine flu virus is confirmed. "Seeking early medical attention can save lives," said Dr. Nikki Shindo of the WHO's global influenza program. "The window of opportunity is very narrow to reverse the progression of the disease. The medicine needs to be administered before the virus destroys the lungs." She said the guidelines, which are similar to those in place in the United States, had not been adopted earlier because agency officials were not yet confident about the safety of the drugs and they feared shortages.

Shindo said the agency is sending emergency supplies of Tamiflu to six countries in eastern Europe where the outbreak is becoming severe: Afghanistan, Mongolia, Belarus, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan. The agency is also sending ventilators to Ukraine, where there have been more than 100 deaths in the last month. The WHO says more than 6,000 deaths linked to swine flu have occurred worldwide, but that figure includes only about 1,000 deaths in the United States. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that its best estimate is that about 3,900 swine flu deaths have occurred in the United States, which would bring the world total to more than 9,000 deaths. Even that is most likely an underestimate, experts said.

-- In the United States, for the week ending Oct. 23, the most recent for which data is available, 587,960 prescriptions for Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs were filled in the United States, according to Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions of Bridgewater, N.J., which also tracks prescription data for the Food and Drug Administration. That total includes 14,673 prescriptions filled in California.

-- Apparently garlic is good for more than Italian cooking and fending off vampires. Many people believe it can also fend off swine flu. Sales of garlic in Serbia have surged and prices have risen sharply as residents have sought out the pungent cloves to protect themselves from the current outbreak there. Serbia has so far had 270 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu and eight deaths, up from 130 cases and two deaths at the beginning of the month. Health authorities there have been taking a more rational approach, however, today ordering  3 million doses of swine flu vaccine from Novartis.

-- An Italian inventor has attacked swine flu in his own way, creating an automatic holy water dispenser similar to the automated water faucets in public bathrooms. Some Catholic churches in Italy had suspended the use of holy water fonts, where parishioners dipped their hands in water and crossed themselves for a blessing, because of fears of spreading the swine flu virus. Luciano Marabese devised a terra cotta urn that allows churchgoers to wave their hand under it to trigger the release of a small amount of the water. He said he has received orders from all over the world.

-- Thomas H. Maugh II

Comments

[Steve]

But people common!!!

Improve your immune system and you´ll most probably stay away from this "awful" sickness!!

Take care...

[Dr David Hill]

I am afraid it is the situation of not letting the virus jump into humans in the first place and everyone appears to miss this point completely. In the tropics and other areas of the world where the killer pandemic virus will no doubt emerge and where it is very cold through the night, farmers sleep with pigs and chickens etc, etc, etc. Therefore as the animals, especially pigs are incubators for most of the possible killer viruses, the farmers are breathing in night-after-night a concoction of air borne viruses and mixing in the human lungs and throat tract. When man becomes infected with human flu, the whole thing is mixing all together for 8 hours on average every night. This is one of the main reasons why avian and swine jump into man. Stop these simple things happening and the virus will have very little chance to spread into humans – you need very close contact for the initial killer virus to become infected into humans in this respect. After that the person infected can easily transmit via chough, sneezes etc, etc to other unsuspecting humans. It is therefore the initial stages that are so vital. The only element therefore needed in many ways, is that we give these millions and millions of farmers, cheap heaters to keep them and their families warm throughout the cold nights. Then they would not sleep with the pigs, chickens et al. Indeed you take the source away from the jump into humans (nightly incubation that goes on every night) and if people know anything about these viruses they will know that they need a mixing vessel where all three viruses exist together. Vaccination of the livestock is also one of the other preventative measures. Put these two together plus other simple methods and the virus can hardly jump or exist in humans as it has not the incubation period to do so – the innovation chain is broken. Indeed, the transmission is extremely low if at all – as the problem is eradicated at source and it never happens.

But again because there are not billions in profits for this field work for pharmaceutical corporations, no one wishes to listen, not even politicians as the drug’s lobby group is so powerful that it strikes all other alternatives down – even if they are the true solution to the problem. It is estimated that all these preventative methods would cost around £50 billion to put in place and which is a very small price to prevent the hundreds of millions that will die once the real killer virus does raise its ugly head (as it will some day) and the financial costs and damage economically to the world are vast; far , far more than £50 billion as the whole system could well collapse.

You will never quicken the lead-time quick enough for any antidote, even if we had an antidote that was safe within 1-month. The reason, the logistics in manufacturing and then distribution would take at least 6 months in the quantities needed (billions of doses) to get to the very first few. For if people did not know also, the 1918 Spanish flu that killed between 20 and 100 million did its worst in the first 6-months of the start of the outbreak. Indeed, from week 16 > Week 26. We have been lucky in the near past that the virus have not been easily transmitted to humans. But when the killer virus does appear that can easily jump into humans, the drugs strategy will be absolutely useless. People should therefore really use their common sense here for their family’s and loved one’s sake and see clearly that this drugs strategy has not a cat in hell’s chance of working when the thing is with us. Then it will definitely be too late for hundreds of millions of people who will inevitably die – it may even be over 1–billion deaths as some people estimate.

I finish by quoting the old adage that 'Prevention is better than cure and where this has always been the primary consideration of health professionals. This has to be the hallmark statement also to stop the eventual killer virus happening. Why treat the condition when you should never let it start.
Unfortunately we have thrown this well established and primary medical understanding of human health out of the window.

Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland