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H1N1 'Swine Flu'
Topic Started: 3 Jul 2014, 01:13 AM (168 Views)
skibboy
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03 July 2014

US-based scientist makes potent version of H1N1 flu

AFP

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Health workers prepare an injection during H1N1 flu innoculations in Rockville, Maryland on October 21, 2009

A US-based Japanese scientist said Wednesday he has succeeded in engineering a version of the so-called swine flu virus that would be able to evade the human immune system.

The research on the 2009 H1N1 virus at a high-security lab at the University of Wisconsin, Madison has not yet been published, but was first made public July 1 by the Independent newspaper in London.

The article described virologist Yoshihiro Kawaoka, as "controversial" and said "some scientists who are aware of (the experiment) are horrified."

Kawaoka confirmed to AFP that he has been able to make changes in a particular protein that would enable the 2009 H1N1 virus to escape immune protection.

"Through selection of immune escape viruses in the laboratory under appropriate containment conditions, we were able to identify the key regions would enable 2009 H1N1 viruses to escape immunity," he said in an email.

However, he described the Independent's story -- which called his research "provocative" because it sought to create a deadly flu from which humans could not escape -- as "sensational."

"It is unfortunate that online news outlets choose to manipulate the message in this way to attract readers, with sensational headlines, especially in regard to science and public health matters," he said.

Kawaoka said the reason for the research was to find out how the flu virus might mutate in nature and help scientists devise better vaccines against it.

He also said he has presented his initial findings to a World Health Organization committee and it "was well received."

Controversy erupted in 2011 and 2012 over research on the H5N1 bird flu, after a Dutch and a US team of scientists each found ways to engineer a virus that could pass easily among mammals.

Concerns were raised over the potential to create a deadly pandemic like the Spanish flu of 1918-1919 that killed 50 million people.

A key worry was that bioterrorists could find a way to recreate and release such a virus, or that it could accidently escape from a research lab.

Scientists stopped their work for a time but the details of the experiments were eventually published in major scientific journals.

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skibboy
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05 April 2015

Jordan reports five swine flu deaths since Jan 1

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© Getty/AFP/File | Syringes filled with H1N1 vaccine sit on a tray at a clinic on November 5, 2009, in San Pablo, California

AMMAN (AFP) - Five people have died in Jordan since the beginning of the year from swine flu, the health ministry said Sunday, adding that it has recorded 130 cases of the virus.

"The health ministry has this year registered five deaths from the H1N1 virus and 30 cases," a senior ministry official told a news conference.

Daifallah Lozi said the deaths included elderly people, children under five and those with chronic ailments.

He urged Jordanians to seek vaccination against the H1N1 strain of flu, which has now killed 30 people in the country since 2009.

The World Health Organisation declared the swine flu pandemic over in August 2010, more than a year after the H1N1 virus that emerged from Mexico sparked panic and killed thousands of people worldwide.

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skibboy
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Iran swine flu outbreak kills 33

4 hours ago

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The swine flu strain has spread around the world since its discovery six years ago

An outbreak of swine flu in two south-eastern provinces of Iran has killed at least 33 people over the last three weeks, state media report.

Iran's Deputy Health Minister Ali-Akbar Sayyari told the official IRNA news agency 28 had died in Kerman province and five in Sistan-Baluchistan.

He warned that the outbreak was likely to spread to other areas of the country, including Tehran.

Swine flu is a strain of the influenza virus known as H1N1.

The strain first appeared in Mexico in 2009 and rapidly spread around the world.

Another Iranian news agency, ISNA, reported that around 600 people had received hospital treatment after contracting the virus in Kerman province.

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skibboy
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06 January 2016

H1N1 flu virus kills 14 in Costa Rica

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© AFP/File | Costa Rica has purchased 950,000 vaccine doses against the H1N1 virus and will start injecting them from April

SAN JOSÉ (AFP) - The H1N1 flu virus killed at least 14 people in Costa Rica over the past month, health authorities said Wednesday, but reassured that they did not see the illness causing a public emergency.

"There are 14 confirmed cases given by the influenza laboratory" in the University of Costa Rica's health research institute, Health Minister Fernando Llorca told a news conference.

He said another five deaths due to respiratory complications were being analyzed to see if the virus was also to blame.

The head of the country's social security agency, Rocio Saenz, said the virus -- also known as "swine flu" -- appeared to be propagating normally and there was no cause for alarm.

"It's the same virus as in 2009," when there was a pandemic, he said. "What has changed is the period it is arriving."

Officials urged the public to take preventative measures such as frequent hand-washing and to cover up coughing to limit contagion.

Costa Rica has purchased 950,000 vaccine doses against the virus and will start injecting them from April.

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skibboy
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10 February 2016

Four swine flu deaths in Lebanon this winter: health ministry

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© AFP/File

BEIRUT (AFP) - Swine flu has killed four people in Lebanon since the beginning of the winter season in November, health officials said on Wednesday.

Walid Ammar, the general director of Lebanon's health ministry, told AFP there were "four confirmed H1N1 deaths this winter season."

"The cases that needed emergency care this winter season is up 20 percent compared to last winter," partly due to a more efficient referral system between the hospitals and the health ministry, he said.

Health Minister Wael Abu Faour said the four fatal cases were a child aged three, a 31-year-old woman, a 36-year-old pregnant woman, and a 58-year-old man.

He also said reported cases had increased by 20 percent but that the number of deaths was comparable with the previous winter season, in which five people died of H1N1.

"The solution would be to decrease kissing, unless extremely necessary," Abu Faour said jokingly to journalists.

His comments sparked a new hashtag on Twitter -- #KissForFaour -- that saw Lebanese users post pictures themselves kissing their partners, children, or even pets.

A regional outbreak of swine flu in 2009 sparked warnings from governments and the World Health Organisation.

By August 2010, when the WHO lifted its warning, the virus had killed 18,500 people in 214 countries.

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skibboy
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18 February 2016

Over 250 swine flu deaths in Ukraine since September: official

KIEV (AFP) - More than 250 people have died of swine flu in Ukraine since late September, a health official said Thursday, with the toll rising by almost 70 people in the past two weeks.

The war-scarred country has been swept by a general flu epidemic that has claimed 313 lives since September 28, when the first illness was recorded, a spokeswoman at Ukraine's flu and acute respiratory infections centre told AFP.

"Of that number, 253 have been confirmed as being caused by swine flu," she said on condition of anonymity.

It marked only the second known time that Ukraine has released swine flu toll figures, which an official at the health ministry told AFP at the start of the month were being treated as a state secret for undisclosed reasons.

Swine flu is the common name for the H1N1 virus, a respiratory disease that is contracted through contact between humans and pigs.

It is transmitted between people through inhalation, but not from eating pork-related products, according to health experts.

The figures released to AFP on Thursday only cover the government-run parts of Ukraine, with no official data available for southeastern regions controlled by pro-Russian rebel fighters since April 2014.

Health ministry officials questioned by AFP could not provide immediate information about swine flu cases in previous years.

At least 50 people have also died from the virus in neighbouring Russia, according to AFP calculations based on data from regional health authorities received on January 26.

A major H1N1 outbreak sparked a World Health Organization pandemic alert in June 2009, after the virus emerged from Mexico and the United States.

The epidemic killed around 18,500 people in 214 countries.

The alert was lifted in August 2010.

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skibboy
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23 June 2016

More than 1,000 swine flu deaths so far this year: Brazil

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© AFP/File | With the Rio Olympics just two months away, health officials reported 1,003 deaths so far this year from swine flu -- also known as H1N1 virus

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - Amid economic woes, political crisis and a Zika outbreak, Brazil's health minister on Wednesday announced yet another concern -- a resurgence of swine flu that has killed more than 1,000 people since the start of the year.

With the Rio Olympics just two months away, health officials reported 1,003 deaths so far this year from swine flu -- also known as H1N1 virus.

That number is the most fatalities linked to the disease in Brazil since 2009, when 2,060 people died.

Government health officials said they have recorded 5,214 total swine flu cases between January 3 and June 11 of this year.

More people tend to fall victim to the disease in May and June, when the weather starts to get cooler.

The uptick began earlier than usual this year, catching health authorities off-guard.

"Vulnerable, unvaccinated populations have been left unprotected," Caio Rosenthal of the Emilio Ribas infectology Institute told the Brazilian news website G1.

"As soon as we began to distribute the vaccine, cases have decreased," Rosenthal noted.

The virus has affected nearly all of Brazil's 27 states, but is particularly concentrated in the southeast region, where 2,606 infections and 540 deaths have been reported.

The majority of those cases have come from the Sao Paulo region, Brazil's political and economic epicenter, where 2,197 cases have been recorded, 434 of them fatal.

Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympics will be held from August 5-21, has recorded 150 cases and 44 deaths linked to the virus.

The rise in swine flu cases is another blow to the South American country already dealing with a Zika virus epidemic, an illness transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito with symptoms similar to dengue.

Zika is of particular concern because it can cause infected pregnant women to bear children with microcephaly, a birth defect that causes abnormally small heads and deformed brains.

As of June 18, Brazil has registered 1,616 microcephaly cases.

Authorities do not anticipate the epidemic will affect the half a million tourists expected to attend the Olympics because temperatures are expected to cool.

The world's fourth-ranked golfer Rory McIlory of Northern Ireland announced Wednesday he would not compete in Rio for fear of contracting Zika virus.

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skibboy
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India swine flu death toll rises above 1,000 this year

24 August 2017

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2016 saw a dip in recorded deaths and affected cases, but this year they have risen

India appears to be in the grip of a swine flu outbreak with 1,094 recorded deaths over the past eight months, said an official report on Wednesday.

The last three weeks have seen the highest number of fatalities, at 342.

A total of 22,186 cases have been reported across the country.

The number of deaths this year is four times more than fatalities recorded over the equivalent period in 2016, which itself saw a dip in occurrences of the disease.

The western state of Maharashtra is the worst affected, where the death toll stands at 437, according to data revealed by the Union Health Ministry.

Neighbouring Gujarat follows closely with 297 deaths, reported news agency PTI.

India experienced a severe swine flu wave two years ago, when health officials scrambled to contain an outbreak which killed more than 1,900 people.

While 2016 saw a dip in recorded deaths (265) and affected cases (1,786), the numbers for this year indicate a resurgence of the disease.

The country saw its most crippling outbreak in the pandemic years of 2009-2010, when the virus affected around 50,000 people and claimed the lives of more than 2,700 across the country.

Dr Sanjay Gururaj, medical director at Shanthi Hospital, a private clinic, told the BBC that it was not mandatory for a private hospital to report its numbers to the government's database.

"The numbers in the official report are possibly just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

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skibboy
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7 Mar

Five-year-old dies in Kenya swine flu outbreak

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The Nanyuki Teaching and Referral Hospital (not pictured) is dealing with 60 flu patients

Kenyan officials are dealing with an outbreak of flu which has claimed the life of a five-year-old boy, the news website Daily Nation has reported..

Officials in western Laikipia County have issued an alert after tests on patients revealed they were suffering from a strain of the H1N1 virus.

Evelyn Obong’o, a clinical officer at Nanyuki Teaching and Referral Hospital, told the Daily Nation that her team is dealing with 60 flu cases, the majority of which are children.

Symptoms include fever, diarrhoea and vomiting.

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