Pregnant womens more infected by swine flu

 Pregnant women are four times more likely to be hospitalised for swine flu and face a much higher risk of severe illness and death, according to
health experts.
US researchers have revealed that the H1N1 virus is taking an “exceptionally heavy toll” on expectant mothers – accounting for at least 13 per cent of deaths worldwide.
And now, they have recommended that pregnant women with the illness should be given antivirals.
Also they have said that expectant mothers must also be given the vaccine as soon as one is ready.
When pregnant, women are always at a higher risk of infection, particularly in the later stages of pregnancy,

Swine Flu in india reached 371

Twenty nine new cases of swine flu were reported in the country on Thursday, taking the tally to 371.
'Twenty-nine new laboratory confirmed cases have been reported on Thursday. Seven in Delhi, six in Bangalore, four in Chennai, four in Pune, three in Hyderabad, two in Thiruvananthapuram, two in Goa and one in Coimbatore,' said a health ministry statement.
'Of the 371 positive cases, 237 have been discharged. Rest of them remain admitted to the identified health facilities. The situation is being monitored,' it added.

Meanwhile, Delhi Health Minister Kiran Walia on Thursday asked parents not to send their children to school if they show symptoms of swine flu, but at the same time advised students that there was no need for panic.
On a visit to St. Thomas School, where 11 students were diagnosed with Influenza A(H1N1), Walia said the government is fully prepared to treat swine flu if there is an outbreak.
'Swine flu has not taken a virulent form and there is no need to worry about the disease. It is curable and can be controlled,' Walia said. Of the 11 students of the school who were diagnosed with the virus, six have been fully cured, while the rest are being treated in the Ram Manohar Lohia, Bhimrao Ambedkar and Loknayak Jai Prakash hospitals.
Special: Swine flu
'There is no need to close the schools. We only need to be careful and take precautions about the disease. The preventive measures have been sent to the schools and principals have been asked to tell the students about the dos and don'ts to avoid the infection,' Walia said.

Fight against swine flu

Copper is quite effective in inhibiting the influenza A H1N1 virus commonly known as Swine flu, according to the latest study.
Copper appears to have a broad spectrum in antiviral activity due to its effectiveness against RNA (Ribonucleic acid)-based influenza and DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid)-based adenovirus 40/41, which causes gastrointestinal infections.
Bill Keevil, professor at the University of Southampton’s School of Biological Sciences, said that he believed copper could be used to reduce the spread of flu in public places.
"With the ongoing threat of contamination by influenza A virus, such as H1N1, there is a real and pressing need to utilise all appropriate and effective measures with proven antimicrobial qualities," said Keevil.
"It is recognised that many infectious diseases are contagious and studies have now shown that the use of copper as a surface material in key public places such as hospitals and food preparation areas offers the potential to substantially restrict and reduce the spread of harmful infections."
The influenza aspect of the study involved a series of experiments testing incubation of influenza A on copper and stainless steel surfaces.
Results showed that after incubation for one hour on copper, 75 percent of the virus was eradicated. Similar inactivation rates have now been observed for adenovirus 40/41.
The study has contributed further to the understanding of copper's antimicrobial qualities, which actively inhibit the growth of bacteria, fungi and viruses, said a University of Southampton release.
These findings were presented at the BIT Life Sciences' Second Annual World Summit on Anti-virals in Beijing this week.

Swine flu test positive in city

Four persons from the city have been tested positive for H1N1 influenza (swine flu), health officials said on Saturday, in the first reported case of the deadly virus in Rajasthan.
The patients -- two women and two children -- are from one family residing at Vishwakarma Industrial Area in the city. They are currently undergoing treatment at the isolation ward of SMS Hospital.
According to the health department, a relative of the patients from London had stayed with the family from July 12 to 14 with his two children. The relative's children were tested positive for flu in Hyderabad on July 16.
"The report of National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) has confirmed positive for A(H1N1) infection," said a senior health official.
Meanwhile, the health department held an emergency meeting to discuss the issue and initiate measures to contain the disease. According to officials, relatives, neighbours, colleagues and visitors of the family were being provided precautionary medication.
In fact, it was due to the vigilance of the family which led to early diagnosis of the case. "After the relative was tested positive in Hyderabad, the family reported to the health department about his stay in Jaipur. Those with symptoms were subsequently admitted to the hospital," said a health official.
Meanwhile, health minister Aimaduddin Ahmad Khan said 20 beds have been arranged in the SMS isolation ward for swine flu, besides masks, caps, gowns and drugs. Rapid response teams had been deployed at all district headquartersto contain the disease, he said.

Younger People at Greater Risk by swine flu

Younger people are at greater risk of catching swine flu, with most cases occurring in teenagers, the World Health Organization said.
The median age of those infected with the pandemic H1N1 virus is 12 to 17 years, WHO said in a statement yesterday, citing data from Canada, Chile, Japan, U.K. and U.S. Patients requiring hospitalization and those with fatal cases may be slightly older, the Geneva-based United Nations agency said.
“As the disease expands broadly into communities, the average age of the cases is appearing to increase slightly,” WHO said. “This may reflect the situation in many countries where the earliest cases often occurred as school outbreaks but later cases were occurring in the community.”
World health officials are trying to determine which groups are most likely to get severely ill so measures to best protect them can be taken. Drugmakers are developing vaccines to fight the scourge, which WHO says may result in 2 billion infections.
Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, diabetes and cancer put people infected with the new H1N1 virus at greater risk of developing severe complications, the UN agency said. Asthma and other forms of respiratory disease have been consistently reported as underlying conditions associated with more severe illness in several countries, it said.
Obesity has also been reported as a risk factor, and there is mounting evidence that pregnant women are at higher risk for more severe symptoms, WHO said. Some minority populations may also be more vulnerable, “but the potential contributions of cultural, economic and social risk factors are not clear.”
Vaccine Supply
Humans trials of a pandemic vaccine began in Australia this week, helping regulators gauge the safety and efficacy of shots.
The most common way to make flu vaccine is by growing the virus in fertilizer chicken eggs. The virus is then extracted, purified and killed for injection into humans, prompting the immune system to generate antibodies that fend off any infection.
WHO said yesterday that the yields for pandemic vaccine viruses are 25 percent to 50 percent of those of normal seasonal flu viruses for some manufacturers.
A network of WHO collaborators is trying to develop higher- yielding vaccine virus candidates, the agency said, adding that it will be able to revise its estimate of pandemic vaccine supply once it has the new yield information.

Help by Factory against swien flu

Workers at the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) factory in Montrose are getting ready to restart production of an essential component of a drug to treat swine flu.

The plant will restart manufacturing zanamivir, the active ingredient in Relenza, in the next few weeks.
Production will last about six months and is designed to replace supplies which are currently being used up because of the swine flu scare.
GSK has said it plans to increase production levels of Relenza.
By the end of the year, it expects to raise its annual production capacity to 190 million treatment courses.
The previous maximum capacity was 60 million treatment courses.
Relenza, which has previously been used in the treatment of bird flu, is an alternative to Tamiflu.
Tamiflu is the drug which has been most widely used in the UK when treating swine flu.

Swine Flu reaches everywhere

he swine flu virus has reached 160 countries and could infect two billion people within the next two years, the World Health Organization has said.
A senior WHO official, Keiji Fukuda, said the virus was still in its early stages and would continue to spread for some time.
Mr Fukuda said work on a vaccine was intensifying but safety could not be compromised by rushing the process.
The virus is thought to have killed almost 800 people in recent months.
Mr Fukuda, the WHO's Assistant Director General for Health Security, said the agency had been reporting only laboratory-confirmed cases, but that this was always going to be "only a subset of the total number of cases".
"Even if we have hundreds of thousands of cases or a few millions of cases, we're relatively early in the pandemic," he told the Associated Press news agency.

"One of the things that is relatively clear is that we will continue to see spread of the virus; even though we are now three to four months into the pandemic, this is still pretty early into the overall period," he said.
Mr Fukuda said the WHO estimates two billion people, one third of the global population, could eventually be infected.
He said the figure was a reasonable prediction, based on analysis of previous pandemics, but that it was "really impossible to predict what the future will hold".
Pregnancy risk
Mr Fukuda said officials and drug manufacturers were investigating how to speed up the process of developing a vaccine against the H1N1 swine flu strain.
But he said there could be no doubt over the safety and efficacy of the drug before it was publicly distributed.
"There is always a balance in this sort of situation. You of course want to get out vaccine and as much vaccine as possible, as quickly as possible. On the other hand there are certain things which cannot be compromised," he said.
"There are certain areas where you can make economies, perhaps, but certain areas where you simply do not try to make any economies."
The WHO says that in most affected countries, the majority of cases appear to be occurring in young people, around the ages of 12 to 17, although some reports suggest it is mainly older people who have required hospital treatment.
The organisation also said there was "accumulating evidence suggesting pregnant women are at higher risk of more severe disease".

swine flu facts and fictions

 

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