Mark of Swine Flu Cases in UK

The number of UK swine flu cases has risen to 1,759 after 145 more people in England were confirmed with the virus.

In Scotland seven more patients tested positive for swine flu. Six are in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.
The overall UK total includes 1,207 cases in England, 537 in Scotland, 12 in Northern Ireland and three in Wales.
A Department of Health spokesman said UK cases have been "generally mild in most people, but are proving to be severe in a small minority of cases".
He said: "We are continuing to work to slow the spread of the disease and to put in place arrangements to ensure that the UK is well-placed to deal with this new infection."
'Best prepared'
Meanwhile, the Scottish Crown Office has confirmed that Jacqui Fleming, 38, of Glasgow, was the first person to die from swine flu outside North America.
Ms Fleming - who had underlying health problems as well as the virus - died on Sunday, two weeks after giving birth.
Her son Jack, who was born prematurely, died in hospital in Paisley, Renfrewshire, on Monday night, but not from the virus.
As well as the confirmed cases in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, a patient was also confirmed with the virus in Lanarkshire. There are 411 possible cases currently under investigation in Scotland.
Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "Laboratory testing is now resuming for all possible cases in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the number of confirmed cases in the area is likely to increase in the coming days."
She added: "Scotland remains amongst the best prepared countries in the world to deal with pandemic flu and we are continuing to plan and prepare for any future eventuality.
"Where new cases are being identified, public health officials are moving quickly to treat people appropriately."

Donates Doses of Swine Flu Vaccine

Sanofi-Aventis SA will donate 100 million doses of swine-flu vaccine to the World Health Organization.
Once production of a vaccine begins, Sanofi will reserve 10 percent of output for the donations, the Paris-based company said today in a statement. The donation will help ensure that the poorest countries have access to the shots, Sanofi said.
“ It’s a call for collective action,” Sanofi Chief Executive Officer Chris Viehbacher said in a telephone interview from Seattle today. “We all have to play our part. It can’t be only the rich countries having access to the vaccines, in case of a pandemic.” GlaxoSmithKline Plc also plans to donate 50 million doses to the WHO, spokesman Stephen Rea said in an interview today.
The decisions by Sanofi and Glaxo contrast with that of Novartis AG, which said this week it wouldn’t donate the vaccine. The Basel, Switzerland-based company may look at pricing and other ways to assure access, spokesman Eric Althoff said today in a telephone interview. Donations won’t address the current pandemic or create sustainable access, Althoff said.
“In principle, I agree that you don’t want to rely on donations, they are not a sustainable model,” Viehbacher said. “But a pandemic is an exceptional event, it’s not on-going. We have to do what we can to help the WHO fight it.” The decision won’t affect Sanofi’s margins, he said.
H1N1 Cases
The spread of the swine flu virus, formally known as H1N1, helped push the WHO on June 11 to declare the first flu pandemic in four decades, and the agency is urging drugmakers to begin producing shots. The agency said today that 35,928 cases of the virus, including 163 deaths, have been reported in 76 countries.
In most cases H1N1 causes little more than a fever and cough. Still, governments have ordered millions of vaccine doses as health officials watch for signs the virus could mutate into a more dangerous form in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.
Wealthy nations need to ensure that poor countries have access to vaccine during the pandemic, Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general, said last week at a press briefing.
Sanofi said it will also consider a tiered-pricing policy for developing countries should its vaccine plants become fully committed to the production of swine-flu vaccine.
Australian drugmaker CSL Ltd. and Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois, also are producing shots to prevent the virus.

Cruise ship over Swine flu fears

Add Venezuela's Isla Margarita to the list of Caribbean islands turning away cruise ships with suspected cases of the H1N1 swine flu.
Pullmantur's 1,350-passenger Ocean Dream arrived as scheduled at the island Wednesday, but most passengers and crew were not allowed to disembark due to an outbreak of flu among crew on the ship.
The Associated Press reports several hundred Venezuelan passengers who had previously been scheduled to depart the island as their final destination were the only passengers allowed off.
The island is the third this week to deny entry to cruisers from the ship. Grenada and Barbardos turned away the ship earlier on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. Two other Caribbean islands, St. Lucia and Antigua, have turned away a cruise ship this month over swine flu fears.  
As of Wednesday, three crew members on the Ocean Dream had tested positive for the H1N1 swine flu, and 11 more crew members have reported flu-like symptoms. Pullmantur says no passengers have fallen ill.
Several news outlets are reporting Venezuelan officials initially had planned to quarantine the Pullmantur ship for 10 days at Isla Margarita. The Associated Press says Pullmantur has denied that was the case, contradicting a Venezuelan health official quoted by the news agency.
The Ocean Dream is now sailing to Aruba where it is scheduled to arrive today.

Swine Flu in island of Aruba

A Spanish cruise ship hit by an outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus among its crew headed for its final stop at the Caribbean island of Aruba on Thursday, the ship operator said.
The Ocean Dream, owned by Royal Caribbean Cruises, was on a week-long cruise due to end on Friday but its itinerary was limited after several crew members came down with the swine flu.
Venezuela confirmed three cases of H1N1 flu among the ship's crew when the boat arrived at the island of Margarita and more than 300 Venezuelan passengers were allowed off, Royal Caribbean subsidiary Pullmantur said.
The ship's remaining 900 passengers and crew are expected to disembark late on Thursday in Aruba, the cruise's final stop.
The ship made stops earlier in the week in Barbados and Grenada, but authorities there refused to let passengers leave the ship.
Pullmantur denied reports by Venezuelan health authorities that the boat had been quarantined for a week along with its passengers, who are mainly from Spain, Colombia and Venezuela but also include Brazilian, British and French citizens.
"The boat is continuing its itinerary in the direction of Aruba, where the rest of the passengers and the affected crew will disembark," the company said in a statement.
Barbados refused to let the ship dock on Tuesday because 43 crew members exhibited flu-like symptoms, the Barbados Ministry of Health said in a statement.
Many of the small island states in the eastern Caribbean depend on cruise ship arrivals as an important source of foreign exchange for their vulnerable economies.
A number of Caribbean states have reported confirmed cases of the H1N1 swine flu, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization last week. Venezuela has confirmed at least 45 cases, with no deaths. One person died from the virus in nearby Colombia.
Royal Caribbean Chief Executive Richard Fain said last week the flu outbreak had "a short, but highly disruptive impact to our operations," although he added vessels were returning to their original itineraries.
The launch of a Pullmantur cruise ship targeting Mexican nationals, the Pacific Dream, had to be canceled because of the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, the epicenter of the pandemic.

Swine flu Catestrophy

 

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