WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years

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GENEVA – The World Health Organization has told its member nations it is declaring a swine flu pandemic — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years.

The move came Thursday as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.

In a statement sent to member countries, WHO says it decided to raise the pandemic alert level from phase 5 to 6, meaning that a global outbreak of swine flu has begun. The decision was made after the U.N. health agency held an emergency meeting on swine flu with its experts.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090611/ap_on_he_me/un_un_swine_flu

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Swine flu may have been in people in August
By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – 1 hr 15 mins ago

NEW YORK – Scientists say the swine flu virus may have jumped from pigs to people as early as last August. That's several months before it was reported in Mexico in April.

Scientists came up with a range of possible times for when the virus showed up in people. Their best estimate was that it happened this past January, but they also said it could have been last August.

Oliver Pybus of Oxford University, a co-author of the study, said it's also possible that the germ jumped to humans even before then. The study was published online Thursday by the journal Nature.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090611/ap_on_he_me/med_swine_flu_earliest

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WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years
BY MARIA CHENG and FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press Writer Maria Cheng And Frank Jordans, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 19 mins ago

GENEVA – The World Health Organization told its member nations it was declaring a swine flu pandemic Thursday — the first global flu epidemic in 41 years — as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.

In a statement sent to member countries, WHO said it decided to raise the pandemic warning level from phase 5 to 6 — its highest alert — after holding an emergency meeting on swine flu with its experts.

The long-awaited pandemic decision is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. It will trigger drugmakers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine and prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.

"At this early stage, the pandemic can be characterized globally as being moderate in severity," WHO said in the statement, urging nations not to close borders or restrict travel and trade. "(We) remain in close dialogue with influenza vaccine manufacturers."

On Wednesday, WHO said 74 countries had reported nearly 27,737 cases of swine flu, including 141 deaths.

The agency has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities — especially in poorer countries.

Still, about half of the people who have died from swine flu were previously young and healthy — people who are not usually susceptible to flu.

Swine flu is also continuing to spread during the start of summer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappear with warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.

The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.

Many health experts say WHO's pandemic declaration could have come weeks earlier but the agency became bogged down by politics. In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would cause social and economic turmoil.

"This is WHO finally catching up with the facts," said Michael Osterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota who has advised the U.S. government on pandemic preparations.

Despite WHO's hopes, raising the epidemic alert to the highest level will almost certainly spark some panic about spread of swine flu.

Fear has already gripped Argentina, where thousands of people worried about swine flu flooded into hospitals this week, bringing emergency health services in the capital of Buenos Aires to the brink of collapse. Last month, a bus arriving in Argentina from Chile was stoned by people who thought a passenger on it had swine flu. Chile has the most swine flu cases in South America.

In Hong Kong on Thursday, the government ordered all kindergartens and primary schools closed for two weeks after a dozen students tested positive for swine flu — a move that some flu experts would consider an overreaction.

In the United States, where there have been more than 13,000 cases and at least 27 deaths from swine flu, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the move would not change how the U.S. tackled swine flu.

"Our actions in the past month have been as if there was a pandemic in this country," Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesman, said Thursday.

The U.S. government has already taken steps like increasing availability of flu-fighting medicines and authorizing $1 billion for the development of a new vaccine against the novel virus. In addition, new cases seem to be declining in many parts of the country, U.S. health officials say, as North America moves out of its traditional winter flu season.

Still, Osterholm said the declaration was a wake-up call for the world.

"I think a lot of people think we're done with swine flu, but you can't fall asleep at the wheel," he said. "We don't know what's going to happen in the next 6 to 12 months."

___

Medical Writer Maria Cheng reported from London. Mike Stobbe in Atlanta, Jill Lawless in London, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Vincente L. Panetta in Buenos Aires and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva also contributed to this report.


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Calif kids quarantined in China over flu scare

CARLSBAD, Calif. – A private school in Southern California says 36 of its students have been quarantined in China while they are tested for the swine flu virus.

The ninth grade students are from the Pacific Ridge School in the San Diego County city of Carlsbad.

School head Eileen Mullady said the teens were at the end of a 13-day educational tour of China when a few students developed the sniffles.

She said Chinese health officials decided on Thursday to quarantine the students and seven chaperones in a hotel. They're expected to fly home early next week.

___

Information from: The San Diego Union-Tribune, http://www.signonsandiego.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090613/ap_on_re_us/us_swine_flu_quarantine

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Calif. students stuck in China due to swine flu

By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Writer Amy Taxin, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 18, 3:02 am ET

CARLSBAD, Calif. – A group of ninth graders and teachers from a California private school has been quarantined in China after seven of them tested positive for swine flu on a school trip.

Caroline Callaway, a spokeswoman for Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, said six students and one teacher have been diagnosed with the virus and are recovering in a hospital in Yichang.

Three other students and a teacher are in the hospital with other illnesses.

The bulk of the group — 25 students and five teachers — has been quarantined in a nearby hotel for a week, but were expected to be released Thursday.

Each student was being held in a different room with a television and phone. Hotel employees make food runs for the students, who were not allowed to have personal contact with anyone — not even each other.

"In the hotel, they're kind of shouting across the hotel and calling each other," Callaway said Wednesday.

Employees at Beijing's swine flu command center and at the hotel say that the group was cleared for release Thursday. It was not clear when the hospitalized students and teachers would be released and allowed to return to California.

The group of 35 ninth-graders left for China on June 2. Before the quarantine, they climbed the Great Wall, explored the immense plazas of the Forbidden City and visited the Terra Cotta Warriors in the inland city of Xi'an.

The group had embarked on a river cruise to Three Gorges Dam when a handful of students and one teacher started feeling sick and saw a doctor on board.

Under the Chinese government's protocol, the students and teacher were taken to a nearby hospital when the boat docked. Callaway said she didn't know where the students contracted the virus. They didn't have flu-like symptoms before the trip, she said.

The first cases of swine flu were discovered in Mexico and the United States, before cases started showing up in Asia.

At the school campus tucked away in the hills in Carlsbad, no one would comment on Wednesday, and all questions were referred to Callaway. Messages were left for Eileen Mullady, the head of the school, and Rick Sapp, chair of the board of trustees.

Sapp told local television station San Diego 6 that his 15-year old daughter is among the students in the hotel.

"When I first initially heard the word quarantine, we all get that sinking feeling from the nature of the word," he said.

"She's upbeat. She understands she's in an unusual situation. She's doing what kids normally do. She is entertaining herself by reading a book."

Callaway said the group might hold an event on campus once they're home to mark the end of the school year, which culminated Tuesday.

After the river cruise, the group was scheduled to head to Shanghai and stay with local families before returning to California.

The trip is tied to the ninth graders' study of ancient history and water resources.

Pacific Ridge opened in 2007 as a college prep school beginning with the seventh grade.

___

Pacific Ridge School: http://www.pacificridge.org/


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_us/us_california_swine_flu

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Calif. students cleared from Chinese quarantine
By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Writer Amy Taxin, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 45 mins ago

CARLSBAD, Calif. – A group of California students and teachers was released Thursday after being quarantined for a week in China because some of their classmates tested positive for swine flu, a school spokeswoman said.

The 26 ninth graders and five teachers who had been held in a hotel in Yichang for a week were released, in addition to three students and a teacher who were in a hospital but tested negative for swine flu, Caroline Callaway, a spokeswoman for the private Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad, said in a statement.

Callaway said the group will travel to Shanghai and leave China Saturday. It was not immediately clear when they would arrive in California.

Six students and one teacher who tested positive for swine flu remained in a hospital, Callaway said.

The group of 35 ninth-graders left for China on June 2. Before the quarantine, they climbed the Great Wall, explored the immense plazas of the Forbidden City and visited the Terra Cotta Warriors in the inland city of Xi'an.

The group had embarked on a river cruise to Three Gorges Dam when a handful of students and one teacher started feeling sick and saw a doctor onboard.

Under the Chinese government's protocol, the students and teacher were taken to a nearby hospital when the boat docked.

Callaway said she didn't know where the students contracted the virus. They didn't have flu-like symptoms before the trip, she said.

Holly Crawford, a spokeswoman for San Diego County's Health and Human Services Agency, said it was too soon to know where they picked up the virus, which has an incubation period of between two and seven days, because the agency hadn't been able to interview them.

The first cases of swine flu were discovered in Mexico and the United States, before cases started showing up in Asia.

At the Chinese hotel where the group was quarantined, each student was held in a different room with a television and phone. Hotel employees made food runs for the students, who were not allowed to have personal contact with anyone.

Rick Sapp, chair of Pacific Ridge's board of trustees, told television station San Diego 6 that his 15-year old daughter was among the students in the hotel. He said she remained upbeat and entertained herself by reading a book.

Sapp did not return calls seeking comment on Wednesday and Thursday.

After the river cruise, the group was scheduled to head to Shanghai and stay with local families before returning to California.

Callaway said the group might hold an event on campus once they're home to mark the end of the school year, which ended Tuesday.

The trip was tied to the ninth graders' study of ancient history and water resources.

Pacific Ridge opened in 2007 as a college prep school beginning with the seventh grade.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_us/us_california_swine_flu

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Cruise ship with swine flu outbreak heads to Aruba

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer Daniel Woolls, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 18, 11:20 am ET

MADRID – A Spanish cruise ship hit by a small outbreak of swine flu was headed Thursday for the Caribbean island of Aruba, where more than 400 passengers will disembark, the vessel's Spanish owner said.

A Venezuelan state health official, Jorge Alchaer, initially said the passengers and crew would be held in quarantine aboard the Ocean Dream off Venezuela's Isla Margarita, but he confirmed on Thursday that the vessel was headed to Aruba.

The ship was originally carrying 759 passengers and 400 crew members for a planned nine-day tour that began last Friday. But 342 Venezuelan passengers got off in Isla Margarita Wednesday because that was their final destination anyway, said an official with Spanish tour operator Pullmantur, which owns the ship. She spoke on condition of anonymity in line with company rules.

Three crew members have tested positive for swine flu and 11 others have flu symptoms but no passengers have fallen ill, Pullmantur says.

The ship was denied permission to dock in Grenada and Barbados on Wednesday. At that point, the company had not yet received confirmation of the positive cases but warned the authorities in those two countries that some crew members were sick, the company says.

The ship is now scheduled to arrive Thursday in Aruba, where the cruise originally began.

Passengers have apparently complained they are not getting enough information on the swine flu outbreak.

"We are out on the water, with people who do not want to tell us anything. This is not a quarantine, it is a kidnapping," passenger Mario Infantini told the newspaper El Pais.

But the company official said the ship's crew had provided travelers with all information it had as it became available.

Venezuela's state news agency, Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias, said the passengers included 198 Spaniards, 151 Colombians, 11 Argentines, 11 Peruvians and seven U.S. citizens. There were also five passengers from the Netherlands, four each from Brazil, Chile and Panama, three from Uruguay, two each from Russia, Romania, France and one each from Belgium, Ireland and Italy.

Passengers will receive a partial refund for not having made the planned port calls in Grenada and Barbados, the company official said.

___

Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_eu/eu_spain_swine_flu_cruise_ship

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US Swine Flu Cases May Have Hit 1 Million
By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe, Ap Medical Writer – 16 mins ago

ATLANTA – As many as 1 million Americans now have swine flu, U.S. health officials said Thursday, adding that 6 percent or more of some urban areas are infected. The estimate voiced by a government flu scientist Thursday was no surprise to the experts who have been closely watching the virus.

"We knew diagnosed cases were just the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious diseases expert who was in Atlanta for the meeting of a vaccine advisory panel.

Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, made the 1 million estimate in a presentation to the vaccine panel. The number is from mathematical modeling, based on surveys by health officials.

Regular seasonal flu sickens anywhere from 15 million to 60 million Americans each year.

The United States has roughly half the world's swine flu cases, with nearly 28,000 reported to the CDC so far. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths.

The percentage of cases hospitalized has been growing, but that may be due to closer scrutiny of very sick patients. It takes about three days from the time symptoms appear to hospitalization, Finelli said, and the average hospital stay has been three days.

Other health problems have been a factor in most cases: About one in three of the hospitalized cases had asthma, 16 percent diabetes, 12 percent have immune system problems and 11 percent chronic heart disease.

The numbers again highlight how the young seem to be particularly at risk of catching the new virus. But data also show that the flu has been more dangerous to adults who catch it.

The average age of swine flu patients is 12, the average age for hospitalized patients is 20, and for people who died, it was 37. It seems to be deadliest to people 65 and older, with deaths in more than 2 percent of elderly people infected, Finelli said.

Also at the meeting, CDC officials made projections about flu vaccines expected to be available to protect against both seasonal and swine flu this fall.

Roughly 10 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine should be available by early September, and production for the whole flu season should be around the 143 million doses produced for the 2008-09 season, said Dr. Anthony Fiore, a CDC flu specialist.

For the swine flu vaccine, health officials outlined possibilities for a campaign urging people to get the shot. The vaccinations might be given as two shots, spaced 21 days apart, but the vaccine has to be tested and licensed before it's made available to the public.


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