The next update will be on Tuesday September 22nd, at 08:30 AM PST.
The WHO Pandemic Alert level remains at Phase 6
Influenza A (H1N1) Cases and Deaths
*Cases reported by The World Health Organization (WHO) are as of 6th September, 2009
Local/National News
An Albertan has become only the second Canadian to fall ill with a drug-resistant strain of H1N1, say Alberta Health Services officials. “Any resistance to medication is important because it could possibly lead to further cases of resistant disease and potentially impact how a disease spreads” says Dr. Gerry Predy, senior medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services. Officials discovered the case after sending a sample to the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg. The first such case was discovered in Quebec.
EDMONTON SUNCanada's election agency is stockpiling hand sanitizer as it prepares for a possible election and a potential swine flu outbreak. A spokeswoman for Elections Canada said each polling station will have two bottles of hand sanitizer along with posters urging flu-stricken voters to cough into their sleeves and wash their hands. The agency emphasized that “The health and safety of Canadian voters during a general election is a priority for Elections Canada. We are taking appropriate steps in line with government of Canada guidelines to provide Canadians with a safe and healthy voting environment.”
GLOBE AND MAIL
International News
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the new swine flu vaccine, a long-anticipated step as the U.S. government works to get vaccinations underway next month. The bulk of vaccine will start arriving Oct. 15, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius confirmed, stating that:. “Eventually [the vaccine] should be available at 90,000 sites around the country.”
CTVIn a study with implications for H1N1 treatment, British researchers have found that some patients with severe breathing problems do better if their blood is run through a heart-lung machine than if they are attached to a conventional ventilator. “We are expecting ECMO to prove an invaluable weapon in the fight against the winter resurgence of the infection,” said one of the study’s authors, Dr. Giles Peek, at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester, England, using the shorthand for the official name for the therapy, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The British study, which took eight years and screened 766 patients to find two groups of 90 to undergo competing treatments, found that ECMO gave adults a 16 percent better chance of survival.
NEW YORK TIMESA meeting of flu experts sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Medicine was told that the new pandemic H1N1 influenza was circulating undetected in pigs for at least a decade before it jumped to people, and much better surveillance is needed among both pigs and people. The new H1N1 strain was only identified in April 2009, from two children in California. By then it had been spreading in Mexico and the United States for months.
GLOBE AND MAILVaccine News
Canada's vaccine manufacturer says one dose – not two – of its new H1N1 drug offers enough protection from the pandemic influenza virus, which potentially means that the country may have ordered more vaccine than needed for its citizens. Results from GlaxoSmithKline's first clinical trials in Germany showed that 98 per cent of healthy adults who received a shot containing 5.25 micrograms of antigen and the company's AS03 adjuvant – chemical boosters that can increase production – were protected from the virus when tested three weeks later. The Public Health Agency of Canada said yesterday the results from GSK are encouraging, but it was too soon to determine if just one dose was needed. GLOBE AND MAIL
Weekly Feature
Do you want to discover exactly how the influenza virus enters the cells of your body? And how does Tamiflu work to inhibit the virus? For the answers to all these questions, click on the following link: Influenza and Tamiflu
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