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Updates:
5 May 2009:
Contact: Stephen M.
Apatow
Founder, Director of Research & Development
Humanitarian Resource Institute (UN:NGO:DESA)
Humanitarian University Consortium Graduate Studies
Center for Medicine, Veterinary Medicine & Law
Phone: 203-668-0282
Email: s.m.apatow@humanitarian.net
Internet: www.humanitarian.net
Pathobiologics International
Internet: www.pathobiologics.org
Study materials:
In the 1918–1919 pandemic, a first or spring wave
began in March
1918 and spread unevenly through the United States, Europe, and
possibly Asia over the next 6 months (Figure 1). Illness rates were
high, but death rates in most locales were not appreciably
above normal. A second or fall wave spread globally from September
to November 1918 and was highly fatal. In many nations, a third
wave occurred in early 1919 (21). Clinical similarities
led contemporary observers to conclude initially that they were
observing the same disease in the successive waves. The milder
forms of illness in all 3 waves were identical and typical of influenza
seen in the 1889 pandemic and in prior interpandemic years. In
retrospect,
even the rapid progressions from uncomplicated influenza infections
to fatal pneumonia, a hallmark of the 1918–1919 fall and winter
waves, had been noted in the relatively few severe spring wave cases.
The differences between the waves thus seemed to be primarily in the
much higher frequency of complicated, severe, and fatal cases in the
last 2 waves. -- CDC: 1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics:*Armed
Forces Institute of Pathology, Rockville, Maryland, USA; and †National
Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
Policy Progress during the last 24 hours:
The head of the World Health Organization warned in a newspaper
interview that swine flu may re-emerge stronger than ever even if
the current outbreak appears to be declining. Margaret Chan told
Britain's Financial Times that an apparent decline in mortality
rates did not mean the pandemic
was coming to an end and a second wave may strike "with a vengeance."
"If it's going to happen it would be the biggest of all outbreaks the
world
has faced in the 21st century," the business daily quoted her as saying.
-- WHO chief warns of second wave of swine flu, AFP,
4
May 2009.
Crucial global surveillance of animal disease could
be revised to include swine influenza in pigs because of its potential
risk to human health, a World Health Organisation expert said Monday....
Phase one of the WHO pandemic flu alert system adopted just four years
ago should be triggered when a potentially dangerous virus is detected
among animals but no infections are reported in humans. With the new
swine flu virus, the WHO jumped straight into phase four very swiftly
after the outbreak was first announced in Mexico and the United States,
because sustained human to human spread had been
established. -- Permanent watch on pigs may be needed for flu,
AFP,
4 May 2009.
ROME, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
said on Monday that national authorities and farmers should carefully
monitor pigs and investigate any possible occurrences of influenza-like
symptoms in domestic animals. -- FAO urges countries to closely monitor A/H1N1 in pigs:
www.chinaview.cn, 2009-05-05 08:01:42
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