Mexico is the epicenter of the flu outbreak - and we basically have an open border with them.

Two antiviral medications, marketed as tamiflu and relenza, both work against the bug, according to the CDC.
Rees

Swine flu at a glance
Key developments Sunday on swine flu outbreaks:

— Deaths: 86, all in Mexico. 22 confirmed as swine flu, 64 suspected.
— Sickened: 1,384 in Mexico, suspected or confirmed; 20 confirmed in U.S.; 13 suspected in New Zealand; 6 confirmed in Canada; 7 suspected in Spain; 1 suspected in France; 1 suspected in Israel.
— Locations in Mexico: 17 states, including Mexico City, Mexico State, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Baja California and San Luis Potosi. Some, including Oaxaca, Mexico City and Baja California, have tourist areas, but authorities have not said where in these states the outbreaks occurred.
— Locations in U.S.: California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas.
— Safety measures in Mexico: In Mexico City, surgical masks being given away on the subway system, public events canceled, schools and public venues closed and church services postponed. President Felipe Calderon has assumed new powers to isolate infected people.
— Safety measures worldwide: Airports screening travelers from Mexico for flu symptoms. China, Russia and Taiwan plan to put anyone with symptoms under quarantine. Hong Kong and South Korea warn against travel to Mexico City and three provinces. Italy, Poland and Venezuela advised citizens to postpone travel to affected areas of Mexico and the United States.
— Safety measures in U.S: Roughly 12 million doses of Tamiflu being moved from federal stockpile for delivery to states. Travelers at border being asked about travel to flu-stricken areas. St. Francis Preparatory School in New York, where eight cases are confirmed, will be closed Monday and Tuesday.

Source: The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The world’s governments raced to avoid both a pandemic and global hysteria Sunday as more possible swine flu cases surfaced from Canada to New Zealand and the United States declared a public health emergency. “It’s not a time to panic,” the White House said.

Mexico, the outbreak’s epicenter with up to 86 suspected deaths, canceled some church services and closed markets and restaurants. Few people ventured onto the streets, and some wore face masks. Canada became the third country to confirm cases, in six people, including some students who — like some New York City spring-breakers — got mildly ill in Mexico. Countries across Asia promised to quarantine feverish travelers returning from flu-affected areas.

The U.S. declared the health emergency so it could ship roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states in case they eventually need them — although, with 20 confirmed cases in five states recovering easily, they don’t appear to for now.

Eight high school students from St. Francis Preparatory School in New York are among those who fell ill in five states, including New York, Ohio, California, Texas and Kansas. Patients have ranged in age from 7 to 54.

Officials said several schools, including St. Francis, would be closed for days. In California, St. Mel's Catholic School will be closed until at least Thursday while health officials determine if a seventh grader has a flu linked to the outbreak. Near San Antonio, a high school in Cibolo will remain closed for at least the next week after two students caught the virus.

Government health officials expect to see more cases of swine flu here, including possibly serious infections, a senior official with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“We expect there to be a broader spectrum of disease here in the U.S.,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for the agency’s Science and Public Health Program. “I do fear that we will have deaths here.”

But make no mistake: There is not a global pandemic — at least not yet. It’s not clear how many people truly have this particular strain, or why all countries but Mexico are seeing mild disease. Nor is it clear if the new virus spreads easily, one milestone that distinguishes a bad flu from a global crisis. But waiting to take protective steps until after a pandemic is declared would be too late.

“We do think this will continue to spread but we are taking aggressive actions to minimize the impact on people’s health,” said Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the CDC.

President Barack Obama’s administration sought to look both calm and in command, striking a balance between informing Americans without panicking them. Obama himself was playing golf while U.S. officials used a White House news conference to compare the emergency declaration with preparing for an approaching hurricane.

Is Tamiflu the only hope against this Flu Pandemic?

"Two antiviral medications, marketed as tamiflu and relenza, both work against the bug, according to the CDC."

By BETSY MCKAY, DAVID LUHNOW and JACOB GOLDSTEIN
from The Wall Street Journal
April 26, 2009

The World Health Organization declared a deadly new strain of swine flu to be a "public health emergency of international concern," as health officials called the disease widespread and governments took precautions to screen for the virus.

New Zealand said that 10 students "likely" have swine flu after a school trip to Mexico, as governments across Asia began quarantining those with symptoms of the deadly virus and some issued travel warnings for Mexico. The Israeli Health Ministry also said there is one suspected case in the country.

Several children at a school in the New York City borough of Queens may have been infected, according to reports from local health departments. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it expects to find more cases soon throughout the country. The CDC confirmed an additional case in California, the state's seventh case, over the weekend. Two cases were confirmed in Kansas, and there have been two cases reported in Texas.

French Health Ministry officials said four possible cases of swine flu are under investigation, including a family of three in the northern Nord region and a woman in the Paris region. The four recently returned from Mexico. Tests on two separate cases of suspected swine flu proved negative, they said.

Spain's Health Ministry said three people who just returned from Mexico were under observation in hospitals in the northern Basque region, in southeastern Albacete and the Mediterranean port city of Valencia.

At least 81 people in Mexico have died from severe pneumonia caused by the flu-like illness, according to the World Health Organization. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan warned that the virus had the potential to cause a pandemic, but cautioned that it was too early to tell whether it would erupt into a global outbreak.

Following an emergency meeting Saturday, a WHO panel declared the developments thus far a public health emergency and urged governments around the world to intensify surveillance for unusual outbreaks of flu-like illness and severe pneumonia. But the panel held off on raising a global pandemic alert, saying it needed more information before making a decision.

Governments world-wide stepped up surveillance for the deadly virus. Officials at Tokyo's Narita airport installed a device at the arrival gate for flights from Mexico to measure the temperatures of passengers. Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors to infected areas who have fevers will be quarantined -- a precaution the Philippines is also considering. The Chinese territory also joined South Korea in warning against travel to Mexico. Indonesia has increased surveillance at all entry points for travelers with flu-like symptoms -- using devices at airports that were put in place years ago to monitor for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and bird flu. It said it was ready to quarantine suspected victims if necessary.

Mexican health authorities are continuing to investigate whether more than 1,300 people were infected with the mysterious bug, which attacked in three geographically diverse areas of the country and is taking its heaviest toll in young adults.

The CDC said it expects to find more cases throughout the U.S.

"The public health community has a number of active investigations of suspect illness going on," Anne Schuchat, the CDC's interim deputy director for science and public health programs, said in a telephone press conference. "I expect us to find more throughout the country."

"It's clear this is widespread, and that is why we have let you know we do not think we can contain this virus," she said. "We're likely to find it in other places."

In New York City, further testing will be required to know whether more than 100 of roughly 2,700 students at St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens were ill with swine flu when they missed school last week, said Thomas Frieden, the city's health commissioner. Health officials have interviewed most of the ill students or their families; all reported mild symptoms, and none required hospitalization.

The health department has tested nine samples taken from ill students, eight of which have been classified "probable human swine influenza," Dr. Frieden said. Local testing confirmed that the samples were influenza type A, which occurs in both humans and swine, and the samples did not match common subtypes of human influenza. Under current CDC definitions, cases of influenza type A that do not match subtypes of human influenza are considered probable swine flu, pending confirmation by the CDC.

The samples have been sent to the CDC for additional testing, Dr. Frieden said. Results could be available as soon as tomorrow. If swine flu is confirmed, the health department will recommend that the school cancel classes on Monday to reduce the risk of further spread.

The city health department is also investigating a report of about 30 children who became ill at a day-care center in the Bronx. But Dr. Frieden emphasized that the status in that case remains unclear and may turn out to be unrelated to swine flu.

The CDC has sent teams to California, Texas, and Mexico to assist with investigations. Confirmed cases include six children and adults in San Diego and Imperial Counties in Southern California. Two 16 year-old boys in Guadalupe County near San Antonio, Texas, were also found to have had the disease. Only one of the cases, a 41-year-old woman, was hospitalized, and the others had only mild disease, the CDC said.

It's unclear so far why U.S. cases identified so far are mostly mild, while Mexico has experienced severe disease, Dr. Schuchat said, though expanded surveillance is likely to yield more clues.

The CDC is also taking initial steps toward preparing a vaccine should that become necessary, but producing enough for a mass vaccination program could take months, Dr. Schuchat cautioned.

President Felipe Calderon urged Mexicans to remain calm and reassured them that government has plenty of antiviral medicines to treat the outbreaks. Two antiviral medications, marketed as tamiflu and relenza, both work against the bug, according to the CDC.

In Mexico City, blue surgical masks proliferated and entrepreneurs were selling them on the streets. And throngs of Mexicans -- some with just a fever -- rushed to hospitals.

Mexican soldiers and health workers patrolled airports and bus stations, looking for people showing symptoms. Hundreds of public events were called off to keep people from congregating and spreading the virus in large crowds. Markets and restaurants were nearly empty. Two soccer games scheduled for Sunday were expected to be played in front of empty stadiums but broadcast on TV.

Roman Catholic officials planned to hold mass later inside an empty Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe for broadcast over the airwaves.

—The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Write to Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com, David Luhnow at david.luhnow@wsj.com and Jacob Goldstein at jacob.goldstein@wsj.com
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Obama greeted in Mexico by Anthropologist who possibly died of the flu

from Bloomberg
By Thomas Black
April 25. 2009

(Bloomberg) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an emergency in his country’s swine flu outbreak, giving him powers to order quarantines and suspend public events.

Authorities have canceled school at all levels in Mexico City and the state of Mexico until further notice, and the government has shut most public and government activities in the area. The emergency decree, published today in the state gazette, gives the president authority to take more action.

“The federal government under my charge will not hesitate a moment to take all, all the measures necessary to respond with efficiency and opportunity to this respiratory epidemic,” Calderon said today during a speech to inaugurate a hospital in the southern state of Oaxaca.

At least 20 deaths in Mexico from the disease are confirmed, Health Minister Jose Cordova said yesterday. The strain is a variant of H1N1 swine influenza that has also sickened at least eight people in California and Texas. As many as 68 deaths may be attributed to the virus in Mexico, and about 1,000 people in the Mexico City area are showing symptoms of the illness, Cordoba said.

Obama’s Visit

The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn’t confirm if Solis had swine flu or not.

The Mexican government is distributing breathing masks to curtail the disease’s spread. There is no vaccine against the new strain of swine flu, health authorities said.

Museums, theaters and other venues in the Mexico City area, where large crowds gather, have shut down voluntarily and concerts and other events canceled to help contain the disease. Two professional soccer games will be played tomorrow in different Mexico City stadiums without any fans, El Universal newspaper reported. Catholic masses will be held, the newspaper said, although church officials urged worshipers to wear breath masks and to avoid contact.

Schools will likely remain closed next week, Calderon said in the Oaxaca speech. The decree allows Calderon to regulate transportation, enter any home or building for inspection, order quarantines and assign any task to all federal, state and local authorities as well as health professionals to combat the disease.
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Is It Swine, Human, Avian, or all of the above?

I didn't think this sort of thing was suppose to happen after Obama became President. Oh, wait! This is probably Bush's fault.
Rees

from Reuters
By Catherine Bremer

"Genetic analysis shows the flu strain is a never-before-seen mixture of swine, human and avian viruses."

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican and U.S. health officials searched on Saturday for signs an outbreak of a new flu strain is spreading further, after it killed up to 68 people in Mexico and infected eight in the United States.

As Mexico shut schools and museums and axed public events, global health officials stopped short of declaring a pandemic.

But they warned more cases could come to light, making up a major outbreak, as the flu spreads between people and infected some individuals who had no contact with one another.

The World Health Organization said the virus from 12 of the Mexican patients was the same genetically as a new strain of swine flu, designated H1N1, seen in eight people in California and Texas who later recovered.

The Mexican government said the flu had killed 20 people and it may also be responsible for 48 other deaths. In all, 1,004 suspected cases have been reported nationwide.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova, speaking on the evening television news, encouraged people to avoid crowds and wear face masks, noting there was no guarantee that going to get a flu vaccine would help against the new strain.

Genetic analysis shows the flu strain is a never-before-seen mixture of swine, human and avian viruses.

The fact most of the dead were aged between 25 and 45 was seen as a worrying sign linked to pandemics, as seasonal flu tends to be more deadly among the elderly and the very young.

"We realize the seriousness of this problem," Mexican President Felipe Calderon told health officials on Friday.

MORE CASES COULD EMERGE

In California, Dr. Gil Chavez, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the California Department of Public Health and the state's chief epidemiologist, said many more cases could come to light as patients are tested. "The more we look the more we are likely to find," he said.

In New York City, health officials were investigating what had sickened scores of students who fell ill with flu-like symptoms in a Queens high school on Thursday and Friday. The symptoms were reported as mild and a city health official said he could not speculate about which flu strain was responsible.

The U.S. government said it was taking the situation seriously and monitoring for any new developments.

As far away as Hong Kong -- the epicenter of the 2003 SARS epidemic and especially vigilant to any threat of infectious disease -- the government's Center for Health Protection said it was closely monitoring investigations in the United States and would analyze flu samples in the territory.

The last flu pandemic was in 1968 when "Hong Kong" flu killed about a million people globally.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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