Please note that the GMS Influenza A (H1N1) Daily Update will be posted by 1200 hrs PST over the holiday long weekend (May 16-18).
Current WHO Pandemic Alert remains at Phase 5
Influenza A (H1N1) Cases and Related Deaths by Country (as of 8 AM PST May 15th)
| WHO Regions & Country | Lab Confirmed Cases | Lab Confirmed Deaths | ||
| Cases Confirmed on May 14th | Total Cases | Deaths Confirmed on May 14th | Total Deaths | |
| AMERICAS | ||||
| Mexico | 0 | 2446 | 0 | 60 |
| US | 946 | 4298 | 0 | 3 |
| Canada | 60 | 449 | 0 | 1 |
| El Salvador | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Costa Rica | 0 | 8 | 0 | 1 |
| Columbia | 3 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Guatemala | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Brazil | 0 | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Panama | 11 | 40 | 0 | 0 |
| Argentina | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Cuba | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| EUROPE | ||||
| UK | 0 | 71 | 0 | 0 |
| Spain | 0 | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Germany | 0 | 12 | 0 | 0 |
| France | 0 | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| Austria | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Netherlands | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Switzerland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Denmark | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Ireland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Italy | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 |
| Portugal | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Sweden | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Poland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Norway | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Finland | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Belgium (new) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN | ||||
| Israel | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| WESTERN PACIFIC | ||||
| China (incl. Hong Kong) | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| New Zealand | 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Australia | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Japan | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| SOUTH-EAST ASIA | ||||
| Rep. of Korea | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Thailand | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| TOTALS | 1023 | 7520 | 0 | 65 |
Lab confirmed cases and deaths have been provided by the WHO’s Influenza A (H1N1) – Update #29.
Local/National News
- On May 14th, the Public Health Agency of Canada announced that 60 additional cases of Influenza A (H1N1) had been confirmed. Ontario still has the most cases in Canada (155), followed by British Columbia (96), Alberta (67), Nova Scotia (66), Quebec (38), Saskatchewan (17), Manitoba (4), PEI (3), New Brunswick (2), and the Yukon (1). Canada’s total case count is now at 449. PHAC
- The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) is now reporting the following confirmed cases across the province:
- 37 in Fraser Health
- 2 in Interior Health
- 19 in Northern Health
- 26 in Vancouver Coastal Health
- 12 on Vancouver Island Health
- On May 15th, the Vancouver Sun reported that several cases of H1N1 flu in travellers to Tokyo have put Canada at the top of national news in Japan and set off a rash of cancellations in travel to B.C. Now, tour operators and event planners who deal with business to and from China are on guard for the same fate as Beijing yesterday homed in on its second confirmed case of H1N1 in a university student who had flown to Beijing from Toronto via Vancouver.
International News
- On Thursday, May 14th, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a shortened schedule for the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA). The WHO had been considering the move to allow more time for health ministers to address H1N1 issues in their own countries. The WHA is set to begin on May 18, but the meeting will end on May 22 instead of May 27. The agenda includes discussions on pandemic preparedness, influenza virus sample-sharing, the International Health Regulations, and WHO budgets and administration. WHO statement
- The Wall Street Journal recently reported that while total Internet use was relatively flat in April, swine flu and home-related news drove individuals to sites that offered information on those hot topics, according to comScore Inc. "When news of the swine flu pandemic erupted, many Americans turned to the Internet as their primary source of information for how to keep themselves and their families safe," said Jack Flanagan, vice president of comScore's Media Metrix. News of the swine flu led to soaring interest at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention's site, CDC.gov, which saw traffic more than double from March, and had the sharpest visitor growth among the 250 most-visited web sites. Wall Street Journal
- The husband of the pregnant woman in Texas who died from swine flu last week has made the opening legal moves in what could become a $1 billion civil suit for wrongful death against a U.S. hog producer that raised pigs in Mexico, which he alleges may be involved with the outbreak. (The petition was first reported by The Brownsville Herald.)
Vaccine News
- On May 14th, experts convened by the WHO made no decision on recommending mass production of a vaccine for the novel H1N1 virus, and how soon such a recommendation might come is uncertain, said Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the WHO. "No big decision, no pronouncements," he told reporters. Calling the issue "enormously complicated," he said a series of additional meetings will be needed. "It's not possible to say a decision will be made by this [a specific] date," he said. WHO briefing
- WHO leaders also estimated that up to 2 billion doses of swine flu vaccine could be produced every year, though the first batches wouldn't be available for four to six months. AP
Latest Guidance from the WHO, U.S. CDC, PHAC, and BCCDC
- The U.S. CDC has published two podcasts aimed at businesses:
- Creating a Safe and Healthy Workplace – This podcast helps businesses understand how novel H1N1 flu can affect their business and how to keep their workers and worksites safe.
- Crisis and Emergency Risk Communications: Best Practices – In this podcast, the CDC's Dr. Barbara Reynolds discusses best practices in crisis and emergency risk communication.
Today’s Key Question
Did a vaccine-manufacturing accident create the virus now causing the swine-flu outbreak?
This is a hypothesis developed by Adrian Gibbs, a former employee of the Australian National University.
The recent swine-flu outbreak led Gibbs to search through public databases and compare the genes of the recently discovered A (H1N1) virus with its ancestors. Gibbs found that the virus had eight genes: two from Eurasia, and six from North America. These findings suggested to him that the virus had two parent viruses, which re-assorted to produce what is now known as swine flu. Calculations performed by Gibbs indicated that the virus experienced a greater than average rate of evolution of its viral genes.
This led Gibbs to theorize that during the manufacturing process of a specific trivalent swine influenza vaccine (containing three separate viral strains), the viruses utilized for vaccine production were not properly killed and may have reassorted in the pig subsequent to inoculation. According to Gibbs, "Not killing off the virus could explain the whole thing very neatly, but it's only one of several possibilities."
Nancy Cox, chief of the CDC's influenza division, has responded to recent media attention surrounding this hypothesis by stating, "The premise that the rate of evolution of the individual genes in this virus is faster than normal is wrong." However, Cox maintains that the CDC keeps an open mind with regard to the origin of the virus, and has examined the possibility of lab contamination or error.
Gibbs asserts that he does not mind the criticism of his idea and has submitted a paper summarizing his hypothesis to an open-access journal, such that it can receive proper scrutiny from the scientific community. Science Insider
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