H1N1 Flu “Fastest-Moving Pandemic Ever”

Posted by Madeline Ellis on 23 July 2009

The World Health Organization (WHO) says the H1N1 flu is the fastest-moving pandemic ever, spreading as much in less than 6 weeks as past pandemic flu viruses spread in more than 6 months. Because of this rapid spread, the agency has revised its reporting requirements so that authorities need not report every case but only clusters of severe cases or deaths caused by the virus or unusual clinical patterns.

The first Mexican patient with a confirmed case of H1N1 flu said symptoms began on March 17, only 11 days before the first case on the American side of the border. The first U.S. case was in a 9-year-old girl in Imperial County, California, who got sick with a fever on Mar 28, with the second a 10-year-old boy in neighboring San Diego County who fell ill on Mar 30. By April 26, a public health emergency had been declared in the U.S. and by June 19, slightly more than a week after the WHO raised the worldwide pandemic alert to Phase 6, all 50 states in the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands had reported H1N1 infection.

Since the declaration of a pandemic, at which time 70 countries had reported cases of the novel virus, the H1N1 virus has continued to spread, with the number of countries reporting cases nearly doubling. In the Southern Hemisphere, where regular flu season has begun, countries are reporting that the H1N1 virus is spreading and causing illness along with regular seasonal influenza. In the U.S., significant H1N1 illness has continued into the summer, with localized and, in some cases, intense outbreaks occurring. More than 50 summer camps in 20 states have sent kids home early or canceled sessions after suspected outbreaks.

The United States continues to report the largest number of H1N1 cases of any country worldwide—40,617 at last count. But flu experts say that in actuality at least a million Americans are infected, with as many as 500,000 in New York, where 57 of the 263 U.S. deaths have occurred. The global death toll from the H1N1 virus has doubled in the past three weeks, rising to more than 700 from about 330 at the beginning of July, the WHO said.

Given its activity to date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) anticipates that there will be more cases, more hospitalizations, and more deaths associated with this pandemic over the summer, with a potential to cause significant illness into the fall and winter in conjunction with the regular influenza season. The good news, however, is that most people who have become ill have recovered within a week without requiring medical treatment.

So where do we stand on an H1N1 vaccine? The first human trials kicked off this week in the southern city of Adelaide, Australia. Vaxine began trials Monday with 300 volunteers, and CSL began a seven-month trial on Wednesday involving 240 healthy adults, ages 18 to 64, that will receive two shots at three week intervals and will undergo blood tests to determine if they are generating an appropriate immune response to the virus. Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky says it will take between six and eight weeks before they know whether the vaccine is effective. “There is no guarantee any of these vaccines will work,” he said. “Swine flu is a very peculiar beast; it’s a very different virus that we’re dealing with. But we are hopeful.”

In the U.S., Dr. Kathryn Edwards, who has studied vaccinations for years, will be heading a study of the H1N1 vaccine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee to determine how quickly the vaccine can get to the general public. “We will study this vaccine in people of all ages,” she said. “First we will start out in normal healthy adults.” The study will eventually expand to a larger group and will take place in the next couple of months. “We obviously will be working very rapidly to try and get as much information as possible because what we’d like to show is that it works very well in a range of patients.”
Resources: http://www.healthnews.com/alerts-outbreaks/h1n1-flu-fastest-moving-pandemic-ever-3484.html