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Swine Flu - Is history repeating itself?

  April 29 (Bloomberg) – Singapore Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said it was only a “matter of time” before cases of swine flu were confirmed in the city-state.
    Health authorities in the Southeast Asian nation are waiting for results on three people referred for testing, the ministry said in notes handed to reporters at a briefing today. A further 14 people have been
cleared of having the virus, it said.
    “We are such a global city plugged into the whole jet airline network that it is a matter of time when some cases, maybe without fever presentation, just walk across our borders, and the next moment
they’ll be in our community and they may start
 causing local clusters” of cases, Khaw said.

 

First case of swine flu confirmed in Germany

 

BERLIN - Germany has confirmed its first case of swine flu in a patient living near Regensburg in southern Bavaria, the region's health ministry announced on Wednesday.

Authorities had said Tuesday that three people from southern Germany were being tested including a couple just back Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, but one of these three has been given the all-clear.

It was not immediately clear if the confirmed case was one of the other two. The Bavarian health ministry said more information would be given at a news conference at 11:00 am (0900 GMT).

There is also a third suspected case in the northern city of Hamburg, with a woman isolated after returning from Mexico with flu-like symptoms and treated with medication, the Hamburg-Eppendorf univesity clinic said.

Results from tests on the woman were due later Wednesday.

Mexico is so far the only nation with confirmed swine flu deaths -- seven in total. Another 159 suspected deaths and 1,311 people remain in hospital there after exhibiting symptoms of the flu.

The United States also has 65 confirmed infections, Canada 13, Britain two, Costa Rica one, Israel two, New Zealand three and Spain two. These and other countries including Australia and France also have suspected cases.

 

Last 2 days, market were sold down because of fear of the swine flu.... but DJ show more resilience and didnt drop as much.

So those that have short sell start to buy back today.....

cathylmg      ( Date: 29-Apr-2009 13:12) Posted: So very true...... iPunter      ( Date: 29-Apr-2009 13:00) Posted: Yes, stocks don't thrive on emotions, feelings and gut...  they have a mind of their own...

 

Urgent: Thai woman returning from Mexico free of deadly swine flu
   BANGKOK, April 29 (Xinhua) – A 42-year-old Thai woman
returning from Mexico, who was earlier suspected to have infected
with swine influenza and being quarantined at Chulalongkorn
Hospital in Bangkok as the first suspected swine flu case in
Thailand, is free of the deadly swine-flu strain, senior medical
officials at Chulalongkorn Hospital announced Wednesday. 

 

So very true......

iPunter      ( Date: 29-Apr-2009 13:00) Posted: Yes, stocks don't thrive on emotions, feelings and gut...  they have a mind of their own...

 

Yes, stocks don't thrive on emotions, feelings and gut...  they have a mind of their own...

 

Funny stocks should be down but unexpected goes the opposite direction. Puzzled!

 

Gave snippets what happening around the world:

1. Swine Flu Spreads to Hundreds in New York as Global Pandemic Threat Rises   New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said hundreds of students in his city are sick with suspected cases of swine flu, an  indication the disease may be taking root in countries outside               
    Mexico. President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion  in new funding to brace for an outbreak, according to a White                
    House spokesman. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger  declared a state of emergency to help the most populous U.S.          

  2. Mexico Travel Tightens as Tour Companies, Argentina Suspend Flights on Flu Air travel tightened to Mexico, the country at the center  
    of the swine flu outbreak, as Canada´s Transat A.T. Inc. joined Europe´s two largest tour operators in suspending flights.                   
    Argentina halted direct flights from Mexico City until May 4,  and Cuba canceled all 5 daily Mexico flights yesterday for 48                
    hours, Mexico´s El Economista reported, citing a statement from  Cuba´s health ministry. The tour companies´ moves may herald                 
    similar steps at airlines as business and leisure fliers adjust  plans.      

3    HONG KONG, April 29 (Reuters) - Asia stocks and the Australian dollar bounced back on Wednesday from a two-day
slide, with investors taking heart from data showing the U.S.economy slowly healing, and betting the swine flu outbreak will
be contained.    The yen slid against higher-yielding currencies on improving risk appetite after data showing U.S. consumer
confidence posting its biggest monthly jump in three years and the pace of home price declines slowing from a record pace.

    The signs of gradual recovery in the struggling U.S. economy helped ease some of the worries about the impact of the
swine flu, as well as reports that top U.S. banks will need to raise more capital after the government stress tests.
    But investors were still on high alert over the risk of swine flu being declared a pandemic and the potential economic
damage.   
   

 

hahahaha my company also start contigency plan..... they planning to break the team into 2 (ala Sars contigency plan)

 

 

 

what plan also become useless unless the pig flu can contain.... pray hard !

Kensonic77      ( Date: 29-Apr-2009 12:11) Posted: Gather feedbacks and implement the next contingency plan lo…

 

Gather feedbacks and implement the next contingency plan lo…

 

har?? chair a meetg on Swine for WHAT ?? UNLESS already got cases in Spore ? hmm... ;D

ticklish8      ( Date: 29-Apr-2009 11:52) Posted: Latest: Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, and Mr Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health, will be chairing a media conference on the H1N1 swine flu outbreak @ 2.30pm

 

Latest:

Mr Wong Kan Seng, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs, and Mr Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health, will be chairing a media conference on the H1N1 swine flu outbreak @ 2.30pm

 

 

BBC On Line news now showing 159 suspected deaths

 

 

Testing for swine flu no easy feat, expert says

LONDON (Reuters) - Testing whether a person has swine flu is not easy and it can take days to confirm that suspected cases are actually caused by the virus, a health expert said on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization has confirmed 79 cases of a virus it said has spread from Mexico -- where it has killed up to 149 people -- into the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Europe, raising fears of a pandemic.

But officials suspect more than 1,600 people may have the infection -- a disparity explained in part because there is no quick test, said Andrew Easton, a virologist at the University of Warwick in Britain.

"Many countries now will have several labs to carry this out," he told Reuters in a telephone interview. "You can't do this in the field."

WHO officials only report cases that have been confirmed by their own staffers, in their own labs, at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a few other places.

Mexico, for instance, ships samples to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta or Winnipeg in Canada for testing.

While testing for seasonal flu is relatively simple, doing the same for H1N1 is far more complicated and none of the three techniques are widely available.

One way to confirm swine flu is with a test that involves growing a virus culture in a lab and then sequencing its genetic material. Testing increases of antibodies and a technique called real-time PCR are the other approaches.

The PCR technique -- which researcher Easton called the most efficient -- uses a device to amplify copies of genes so researchers can easily compare a sample taken from a sick person to the genetic material of the potentially pandemic infection.

"You start with a small number of copies of the virus genes and the technique multiplies them up in a test tube to give them many hundreds of thousands of copies of the virus genes which are easy to measure," Easton said.

The first step for doctors and health officials is often collecting a sample at a local clinic or hospital and then sending it on to a more well-equipped lab for analysis. This can produce some of the biggest delays.

Next researchers must purify the sample to get rid of natural compounds that may interfere with a reading -- something that also takes time, Easton said.

"Once you know the genetic makeup of the virus, the machine can tell whether the (genetic) sequence is that of the suspected infection," Easton said.

"If everything was optimized and there were plenty of people around to handle the result you could easily get a result that day." The PCR device itself can within a few hours compare the genetic makeup of the sample with that of a pandemic virus, Easton said.

 

If SARs can be over before, so can this one...

especially with all the intitial combative actions already in place ready to go...

It will pass...

 

surprisingly...STI quite resilience siah...up +12 ?!??! wow...

Alligator      ( Date: 29-Apr-2009 08:51) Posted: 'IT is like an act of God. It's like Sars. How long will it last? I don't know. But we're taking all the precautions. So far, nobody has been affected. I don't know how many of our people are doing business in Mexico, but if they come back, they will be quarantined. We're taking no chances. We learnt from Sars. We've got all the precautions in place, thermal imaging; slightest sign of something wrong, you go straight into quarantine. We check you, check for (the) virus, but so far (it's) all right.' Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, speaking on Tuesday on Singapore's defences against the spread of swine flu from Mexico and whether the outbreak could affect tourism

 

 

 

 seems like Sg is abit kiasu as usual...wonder if our STI will react likewise ? hee... :D




The Ministry of Health (MOH) has elevated Singapore's alert level from "green" to "yellow" to guard against swine flu.

 

U.S. officials want "swine" out of flu name

  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - What's in a name? U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.

At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the "H1N1 virus."

"This is not a food-borne illness, virus. It is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that's not what this is about," Vilsack said.

Israel has already rejected the name swine flu, and opted to call it "Mexico flu." Jewish dietary laws forbid eating pork.

The Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health also objected to the name, saying the virus contains avian and human components and no pig so far has been found ill with the disease.

And there is growing sentiment in the farm sector to call it the North American virus -- although disease expert Anthony Fauci told a Senate hearing the "swine flu" designation reflected scientific naming protocol.

For U.S. pork producers the swine flu name has hurt, forcing government officials into the position of stressing that American pork is safe to eat and that other countries should not ban imports.