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Swine Flu - Is history repeating itself?

hi tick... are u reporter ??

 

yesterday press conference:

http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/mica/press_release/P-20090429-1.html

 

If u want to read about the employment situation

http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases/agencies/mom/press_release/P-20090430-1.html?AuthKey=c117b0f8-3a57-bb49-8999-46d02

 

http://www.news.gov.sg/public/sgpc/en/media_releases.html

 

I've sold all my portfolio including NOL 100 lots @1.31 break even..... better wait for clearer picture...the stupid flu spoil the game man...

ticklish8      ( Date: 30-Apr-2009 10:15) Posted: Usually if Singapore kena cases, MOH will send media advisory about press conference in the evening/ late evening. Minister Khaw quite hands on n kiasu... much much better than Lim Hng Kiang who was slow, only reconvene after 2 death from Sars.  MEXICO CITY, April 29 (Reuters) - Mexico has counted another 17 deaths of patients suspected to have been infected with swine flu, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Wednesday.     The figure brings the total number of swine flu deaths in Mexico to as many as 176, a Health Ministry spokesman said.  (Reporting by Jason Lange and Catherine Bremer, Editing by Sandra Maler)

 

Usually if Singapore kena cases, MOH will send media advisory about press conference in the evening/ late evening.

Minister Khaw quite hands on n kiasu... much much better than Lim Hng Kiang who was slow, only reconvene after 2 death from Sars.

 MEXICO CITY, April 29 (Reuters) - Mexico has counted
another 17 deaths of patients suspected to have been infected
with swine flu, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on
Wednesday.
    The figure brings the total number of swine flu deaths in
Mexico to as many as 176, a Health Ministry spokesman said.
 (Reporting by Jason Lange and Catherine Bremer, Editing by
Sandra Maler)

 

touch wood.... if Spore reported new case... by then over shares sure lau sai like nobody.... susah man... don't know to buy or run ... 50/50...

 

MEXICAN HEALTH MINISTER SAYS MEXICO HAD 17 MORE SUSPECTED SWINE
FLU DEATHS SINCE TUESDAY
 REUTERS

 

WHO:

   GENEVA, April 29 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the world is at the brink of a pandemic,
raising its threat level as the swine flu virus spread and killed the first person outside of Mexico, a toddler in Texas.
    “Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in
the world,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva as she raised the official alert level to
phase 5, the last step before a pandemic.
    “The biggest question is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start,” Chan said. But she added that
the world “is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than atany time in history.”
    Nearly a week after the H1N1 swine flu virus first emerged in California and Texas and was found to have caused dozens of
deaths in Mexico, Spain reported the first case in Europe of swine flu in a person who had not been to Mexico, illustrating
the danger of person-to-person transmission.
    Both U.S. and European officials have said they expect to see swine flu deaths.
    President Barack Obama said during an evening news conference at the White House there was no need for panic and
rejected the possibility of closing the border with Mexico.
    ‘THE HORSES ARE OUT’
    “At this point, (health officials) have not recommended a border closing,” he said. “From their perspective, it would be
akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States.”
    Obama also praised his predecessor for stockpiling anti-viral medication in anticipation of such an outbreak.
    “I think the Bush administration did a good job of creating the infrastructure so that we can respond,” Obama said. “For
example, we’ve got 50 million courses of anti-viral drugs in the event that they’re needed.”
    Despite worries that a major flu outbreak could hit the struggling global economy, world stocks rallied on Wednesday
after the Federal Reserve said the U.S. recession appeared to be easing.
    Almost all cases outside Mexico have had mild symptoms, and only a handful have required hospitalization.
    Chan also urged companies who make the drugs to ramp up production. Two antiviral drugs – Relenza, made by
GlaxoSmithKline and Tamiflu, made by Roche AG and Gilead Sciences Inc. – have been shown to work against the H1N1 swine
flu strain.
    Drugmakers have donated millions of doses of their drugs to the WHO. She also alerted governments to be ready to distribute
stockpiles of their drugs. Vaccine makers were on standby to begin making a new vaccine if needed.
    In Mexico, where up to 159 people have died from the virus and around 1,300 more are being tested for infection, people
struggled with an emergency that has brought normal life virtually to a standstill over the past week.
    MEXICAN BOY DIES IN TEXAS
    Germany, Austria and Peru reported cases of the illness, bringing the number of affected countries to 10. Peru said its
case involved a woman who had traveled to Mexico and its health minister immediately announced the suspension of all commercial
flights arriving from that country.
    Texas officials said a 22-month-old boy had died while on a family visit from Mexico, marking the first confirmed U.S.
swine flu death.
    In the Texas border city of Brownsville, where the young Mexican was first diagnosed and many residents have families on
both sides of the Rio Grande river border, some residents said they were now reluctant to venture south to Mexico.
    “I am extremely concerned because you could die,” said Santiago Perez, 18, a student at Pace High School.
    Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s newly confirmed health secretary, spent her first day in office on a rapid-fire media
tour as the administration sought to calm public fears while urging public health vigilance.
    “We know that the cases will continue to rise,” Sebelius said.
    Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the Customs and Border Patrol was keeping an eye out for sick
travelers, as usual, and had checked 49 people with flu-like symptoms. She said 41 had been cleared of H1N1 infection and
eight were still being studied.
    “We are preparing for the worst; hoping for the best,” Napolitano said. “All of us should be dusting off our business
contingency plans, looking at things like telecommuting and the like so that things keep operating.”
    Mexico’s central bank warned the outbreak could deepen the nation’s recession, hurting an economy that already shrank by
as much as 8 percent from the previous year in the first quarter.
    France said it would seek a European Union ban on flights to Mexico.
    The EU, the United States and Canada have advised against non-essential travel to Mexico, a popular tourist destination,
with many of the cases linked to travel there. Many tourists already in Mexico were hurrying to leave, crowding airports and
trying to change their tickets.
    “We didn’t want to get stuck here,” said Australian Alex Grinter, who left her beach vacation in the southern state of
Oaxaca to get an early flight to Vancouver.     In Mexico City, a metropolis of 20 million, all schools,
restaurants, nightclubs and public events have been shut down to try to stop the sickness from spreading.
    H1N1 swine flu is seen as the biggest risk since H5N1 avian flu re-emerged in 2003, killing 257 people of 421 infected in
15 countries. In 1968 a “Hong Kong” flu pandemic killed about 1 million people globally, and a 1957 pandemic killed 2 million.

 

 MEXICO CITY, April 29, 2009 (AFP) - Mexico on Wednesday raised its
confirmed number of flu cases to 99, including eight dead, Health Minister Jose
Angel Cordova said.

 

New cases

April 29 (Bloomberg) – Peru confirmed the nation’s first case of swine flu in an Argentine woman who was on a flight from Panama to Argentina and was dropped off by the airline yesterday when she started exhibiting symptoms.

  GENEVA, April 30, 2009 (AFP) - The first case of swine flu in Switzerland was confirmed early Thursday by the cantonal hospital at Baden in Aargau canton, northern Switzerland.

 

 

 

In NZ....

WELLINGTON, April 30, 2009 (AFP) - The number of suspected swine flu cases
in New Zealand rose to 104 Thursday, the government said.
    “The growth in the suspects is primarily from close family contacts of
passengers on flights,” Health Minister Tony Ryall told a press conference.
    “We are working hard to identify people potentially with swine flu so that
we can provide them with treatment and support and limit the spread of the
flu.”

 

Latest from US

    WASHINGTON (AP) – The swine flu outbreak began taking a toll on
the U.S. Wednesday, spreading to 11 states and closing schools amid
confirmation of the first U.S. death – a Mexican toddler who was
visiting Texas with his family.
    In California, dozens of Marines were confined after one came
down with the disease. Some 100 schools were closed, and more might
need to be shut down temporarily.
    President Barack Obama pledged “great vigilance” in dealing
with the situation as the total confirmed cases in the U.S. rose to
nearly 100, with many more suspected.
    The Geneva-based World Health Organization sounded its own
ominous alarm, raising its alert level to one notch below a
full-fledged global pandemic. Said WHO Director General Margaret
Chan: “It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a
pandemic.”
    Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta there were confirmed cases
in ten states, including 51 in New York, 16 in Texas and 14 in
California. The CDC also counted scattered cases in Kansas,
Massachusetts , Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada and Ohio.
    State officials in Maine said laboratory tests had confirmed
three cases in that state, not yet included in the CDC count.
    And the Pentagon said a Marine at the Twentynine Palms base in
California had been confirmed to be ill with swine flu and was
isolated, along with his roommate. A Marine spokesman at the
Pentagon, Maj. David Nevers, said the sick Marine was doing well and
his condition continued to improve. Nevers said about 30 others who
had been in contact with the sick Marine would be held apart for
five days as well as to see if they show symptoms.
    In Mexico, where the flu is believed to have originated,
officials said Wednesday that the disease was now suspected in 159
deaths, and nearly 2,500 illnesses.
    The first death in the United States from the flu was a Mexico
City toddler who traveled to Texas with his family to visit
relatives.
    Texas’ health director, Dr. David Lakey, told a news conference
that it was “highly likely” that the boy contracted the disease in
Mexico before his trip to the U.S.
    Officials in Brownsville were trying to trace his family’s trip
to find out how long they were in the area, who they visited and how
many people were in the group, said Cameron County Judge Carlos
Cascos.
    The boy, who was 23 months old, had “underlying health issues”
before he flew to Matamoros, Mexico, on April 4 and crossed into
Brownsville to visit relatives, state health officials said.
    He developed flu symptoms four days later and was taken to a
Brownsville hospital April 13 and transferred the following day to
Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where he died Monday night.
    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday
confirmed that he had been infected with the swine flu virus. The
cause of the death was pneumonia caused by the virus, Cascos said.
    Texas called off all public high school athletic and academic
competitions at least until May 11 due to the outbreak.
    Despite calls from many U.S. lawmakers for tightening controls
over the Mexico-US border, Obama and his deputies ruled out that
option.
    At a prime-time news conference, Obama said health officials
weren’t recommending closing the border with Mexico.
    That, he said, “would be akin to closing the barn door after the
horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United
States.”
    Instead, Obama said, his administration had ramped up screening
efforts and made sure needed medical supplies were on hand.
    “The key now is to just make sure we are maintaining great
vigilance, that everybody responds appropriately when cases do come
up,” he said. “And individual families start taking very sensible
precautions that can make a huge difference.”
    Earlier, Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
said closing the borders was not warranted.
    She said closing borders or U.S. ports would have enormous
adverse economic consequences and would have “no impact or very
little” to help stop the spread of the virus.
    “This virus is already in the United States. Any containment
theory ... is really moot at this time,” Napolitano said.
    In fact, customs agents have delayed 49 people at the border
because of flulike symptoms, and 41 have been cleared so far. Test
results on the other eight were not complete.
    Laboratory testing showed the new virus was treatable by the
anti-flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, and the first shipments from a
federal stockpile arrived Wednesday in New York City and several
other locations. The government was shipping to states enough
medication to treat 11 million people as a precaution. All states
should get their share by May 3.
    No shortages had been reported – there was plenty in regular
pharmacies, federal health officials said.
    The disease is not spread by eating pork and U.S. officials
appeared to go out of their way on Wednesday to not call the strain
“swine flu.” Obama called the bug the “H1N1 virus,” and other
administration officials followed his lead.
    “The disease is not a food-borne illness,” Rear Adm. Anne
Schuchat, CDC’s interim science and public health deputy direct,
told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
    She said the strain is particularly worrisome because “it’s a
virus that hasn’t been around before. The general population doesn’t
have immunity from it.”

 

H1N1...compare with H5N2...which is more deadly?

 

  CAIRO (AP) – Egyptian government says it will slaughter all pigs
in the country because of swine flu.
    AP-TK-29-04-09 1223GMT

 

 WASHINGTON, April 29, 2009 (AFP) - US President Barack Obama said Wednesday
the outbreak of swine flu had created a “serious situation” in the United
States requiring the “utmost precautions.”
    “This is obviously a serious situation, serious enough to take the utmost
precautions,” the president said, urging schools with suspected cases to
close.

 

   MEXICO CITY, April 29 (Reuters) - A baby in Texas became the first confirmed death outside Mexico on Wednesday from the new
H1N1 flu strain.
    A U.S. government official said a 23-month-old child in the southern state had died from the virus, which Germany said it
had found in three cases – the eighth country to do so.
    There were no further details about the death in the United States, most of whose 65 confirmed cases of swine flu have
proved mild.
    Nearly a week after the threat of a pandemic emerged in Mexico, that country remained the hardest hit, with up to 159
people killed.
    France said it would seek on Thursday a European Union ban on all flights to Mexico because of the flu. The EU, like the
United States and Canada, has already advised against nonessential travel to the popular tourist destination.
    Cases have now been confirmed in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Israel, Britain, Spain and, on Wednesday, Germany.
    Germany’s infectious diseases agency found swine flu in a man and a woman in their late 30s in Bavaria, and a 22-year-old
woman in Hamburg at the other end of the country, all of whom had recently returned from Mexico.
    The World Health Organisation said it may raise its pandemic alert level to phase five – the second highest – if it was
confirmed that infected people in at least two countries were spreading the new disease to other people in a sustained way.
    Before the U.S. death was reported, Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director for health security and environment, said it
could be a “very mild pandemic", adding, however, that influenza “moves in ways we cannot predict”.
    Stock markets in Asia and Europe rose on Wednesday, partly on optimism the world could be spared a major deadly pandemic.
 (Reporting by Jason Lange, Catherine Bremer Alistair Bell and Helen Popper in Mexico City, Andrew Quinn in Washington and Eric
Burroughs in Hong Kong; Writing by Andrew Marshall, edited by Richard Meares)
 REUTERS

 

  WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - A government official
confirmed the first U.S. death from the new H1N1 swine flu on
Wednesday, a 23-month-old child who died in Texas.
    It is the first death from swine flu reported outside
Mexico, the country hardest hit by the influenza outbreak. The
official gave no other details on the case. U.S. officials have
confirmed 65 cases of swine flu, most of them mild.

 

LATEST FIRST DEATH IN US

 

 US SWINE FLU DEATH WAS 23-MONTH-OLD CHILD IN TEXAS - GOVERNMENT
OFFICIAL SAYS
 REUTERS

 

During the press conference Minister Khaw also mention 3 blind spots

1) Mr Khaw said fighting swine flu was more difficult partly because it is more contagious than Sars

2) Second, patients can be infectious even before symptoms appear -- so border controls cannot be foolproof.

3) Flu pandemics tend to come in waves -- so Singapore must be mentally and physically prepared for a long battle. The 2nd waves according to him can be lethal.