There have been a few recent developments on the Pandemic front that I thought should be discussed.

First, last week CIDRAP reported new  H5N1 (Bird Flu) outbreaks in India (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/jan0509birds-jw.html) as well as China and Vietnam (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/jan0609humans-br.html).  Despite the fact that H5N1 gets almost no play with the media, it is still the biggest threat in the world of becoming the next pandemic.  The mortality rate, or death rate, is still a very high 63 percent of all people who contract H5N1.  393 have been infected by H5N1 since its inception in 2003, and of those, 248 have died.  Fortunately this is still only a small number of people. 

Some positive news, for a change.  There was a study released in December that shows a correlation between use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and protection from viruses.  This study, conducted by researchers in the UK, was reported by the CDD and can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/15/1/59.htm.     It concluded that “Incomplete use of personal protective equipment (PPE) was associated with conjunctivitis and influenza-like symptoms. Rigorous use of PPE by persons managing avian influenza outbreaks may reduce exposure to potentially hazardous infected poultry materials.”  It was not the most resounding affirmation, but it is significant that less illness was found when PPE was used effectively.

Last week, there was an article in the New York Times that the current seasonal influenza had developed a resistance to Tamiflu.  The seasonal flu is almost exclusively H1N1.  Unfortunately, H1N1 is now fully resistant to Tamiflu.  Fortunately, there are no other strains of flu that have developed the same resistance, so Tamiflu is still effective against all other flu strains.  Relenza is still effective so far as it is known.  The full article can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/health/09flu.html?_r=1&hp. 

I hope this summary of recent developments has been helpful.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Pandemic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.