Thorn Tree travel forum

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A post on WHO Worldwide Flu Alert

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science.
Albert Einstein

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Most recent WHO information will be here Disease outbreaks

Nutrax
The plural of anecdote is not data

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Hi folks,

Here's a great post from Mashable about how to track swine flu online.

~ Lonely Planet Community Manager ~

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An AP News article here about the spread of the disease. It includes some preliminary information on airport screening and quarantines (interestingly, Narita, Tokyo, has installed devices that track the temperature of passengers).

Edited by: vivekw

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

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This Google maps mash indicates reported cases.

~ Lonely Planet Community Manager ~

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Has anyone heard of any restrictions being placed on Mexicans flying out of Mexico into other countries? (in this case, they have no symptoms etc) Thanks....

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Guadalajara Reporter is stating at the current time there are no known restrictions on travel to or from Mexico. However, this could change at any moment.

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Japan is now monitoring passengers on all flights from Mexico for fever.

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Sinderella, from what I've seen, many airports are increasing security around passengers from Mexico. If you present with flu symptoms, you will be examined. If not, it looks like you're OK.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell

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Is there anyone who is out there who can let us know what it's like at the moment.
Are many things closed? Bars/Resteraunts/museums/subway?
I have a flight to mexico city in about a weeks time and was planning on heading. I'm still planning on going, but will see how things develop over the next week. Im currently more concerened (maybe mistakenly) about not being able to do the things I want rather than contracting swine flu.

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I don't quite understand why the WHO maintained the pandemic alert at level 3. The current situation does not match their own criteria.

First confirmed case in Spain now.

The WHO and CDC websites aren't posting updates on the situation very quickly. There's a better overview with live updates on wikipedia.

Ko Lipe, disaster island

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This was posted by th emoderator of an infectious disease email list. It appears that this flu strain has the potential to infect many people, but it does nto appear ot be a particualrly deadly strain

---

The media feeding frenzy is very reminiscent of the early days of SARS --
an apparently highly contagious novel viral febrile respiratory infection
cropping up in multiple locations, with many unknowns as to the origin of
the virus and what will happen next.

To summarize the status of confirmed cases and suspected cases as best as
one can (given the exponential growth of press releases and press
interviews leading to thousands of newswires): There are presently 20
confirmed cases in the United States involving 5 States -- California (7),
Kansas (2), New York City (8), Ohio (1) and Texas (2). Of these, only one
has been hospitalized and all have been relatively mild and self-limited
infections. There have been no fatalities attributable to this novel H1N1
virus infection in the USA reported as of today (26 Apr 2009). In Mexico
there have been over 1400 reported cases in 19 of 32 States, with 81 (or 86
depending upon the source) reported fatalities. (This number of fatalities
has not altered significantly from the ProMED-mail posting on this outbreak
earlier today (see Influenza A (H1N1) virus, swine, human - N America (03)
20090426.1566). There have been 6 cases confirmed in Canada, 4 in Nova
Scotia, 2 in British Columbia -- all 6 cases have been mild with self
limited illnesses. In addition to the confirmed cases in North America,
there are suspected cases reported from New Zealand, Spain, France, Israel

• • all involving travellers returning from Mexico. At this point in time,

any individual with a history of travel to a location with known confirmed
cases of the novel H1N1 virus who develops an influenza like illness (ILI)
is considered a suspected cases until results from laboratory testing are
available. One would expect the volume of reports of suspected cases to
grow, as more and more travellers return to their countries of origin, with
a proportion of them having ILIs -- a well observed illness following
airline flights.

In an earlier posting, this moderator pointed out that the reported cases
in Mexico were hospitalized pneumonia cases, with surveillance data coming
from inpatient facilities. In contrast, the information on the reported
cases in the USA involved surveillance data coming from outpatient
facilities. This difference in sentinel reporting sites biases reported
cases in Mexico to be more severe cases as they are cases that were severe
enough to merit hospitalization. In turn, the use of outpatient sentinel
surveillance sites in the USA leads to a bias selecting milder cases --
those that do not require hospitalization. One suspects that once the
countries heighten ILI surveillance to include both inpatient as well as
outpatient facilities, these disparities will lessen. One also suspects
that the true number of cases in Mexico is significantly higher than the
currently reported approximately 1500 cases, which would further lower the
calculated case fatality rate (CFR). (Information on the actual number of
reported cases in Mexico is not readily available on the Ministry of Health
website, so all figures are estimates based on earlier figures provided in
CDC and WHO reports and on newswire reports. Hopefully these figures will
be available on a regularly updated basis to permit following the course of
the outbreak).

Based on the currently available information, the novel H1N1 virus involved
in these outbreaks has genetic material from human viruses (permitting
human to human transmission), avian influenza viruses, and swine influenza
viruses. For years the scientific community has been speculating that new
influenza strains might arise when an avian influenza virus infects swine
that are also coinfected with human influenza viruses. This coinfection in
the same host, along with a possible 3rd coinfection of a swine influenza
virus, has been felt to offer the potential for reassortment of the genetic
material of the viruses, that might ultimately produce a virus that is
novel to humans, and can infect humans and be transmitted between them.

Nutrax
The plural of anecdote is not data

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All that information is on the wikipedia link I posted too nutrax.

As is the news that there is a confirmed case in Europe....it was announced by the Spanish health ministry this morning. Still nothing about it on the WHO or the CDC websites yet...

No one knows yet just how virulent this new strain is but it has caused deaths and it does seem to be spreading rather fast. Human infection with swine fever has been relatively rare until now. ...only 12 cases in the US between 2005 and February this year.

Certain strains of avian flu, such as H5N1, are highly pathogenic to humans with a 60% mortality rate. AFAIK there is no real evidence of human to human transmission of H5N1 but a lot of birds still carry the disease and it is transmissible from poultry to humans.

I have a question for the experts around here.

Even it it proves not to be very deadly, this new flu contains a strain endemic in humans, two flu strains endemic in pigs and an avian strain. What happens if it does become pandemic and someone gets infected with it and H5N1 simultaneously? What happens if poultry carrying the H5N1 strain become infected with it? Isn't there a fairly high risk that it might result in a mutation of the H5N1 strain making it more efficient in causing human infections and also more easily transmissible from human to human? Could pigs eventually become a reservoir of a variant of the H5N1 strain too if this happens?

Don't want to be alarmist or anything, just wondered.

Edited by: somebodyelse

Ko Lipe, disaster island

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Here's a summary of what I know to be currently happening in Mexico:

1) In Mexico City schools, museums, concert halls, clubs are all closed until May 6th. Football matches are being played behind closed doors.

2) Schools are being closed as a precaution in many places (certainly in Guadalajara, Querétaro and Acapulco). This is until May 6th.

3) In Acapulco the clubs are closed.

4) In Puerto Vallarta clubs and bars are closed.