Swine Flu Spreads as Brazil, Argentina, Japan Get First Cases
By Tom Randall and Lisa Rapaport
May 8 (Bloomberg) -- Argentina, Brazil and Japan confirmed their first cases of swine flu as six more people contracted the virus that’s infected over 2,000 worldwide.
Four people are infected in Brazil and one in Argentina, the countries’ health ministers said yesterday. A Japanese boy in Chicago tested positive, Japan’s Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said today. Since April 24, the virus formally known as H1N1 has extended its reach from Mexico and the U.S. to South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and New Zealand.
A World Health Organization panel will meet May 14 to decide whether drugmakers should begin producing hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine against the new illness. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director-general of health, security and environment, said swine flu may spread to at least one-third of the world’s 6 billion people in the next year.
“Even if the illnesses appear relatively mild at the individual level, the global population level adds up to enormous numbers,” Fukuda said yesterday. He declined to say how many deaths there might be in a full pandemic.
The Geneva-based organization said yesterday the disease has been confirmed in 2,371 people in 24 countries, including 44 deaths, before Brazil and Argentina reported their cases.
“No one can say how the current situation will evolve,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a pre-recorded video broadcast to Asian ministers in Bangkok today. “This is a time of great uncertainty.”
The three main seasonal flu strains -- H3N2, another form of H1N1, and type B -- cause 250,000 to 500,000 deaths globally each year, according to the WHO. Swine flu causes similar symptoms as the seasonal variety, including coughing and fever.
Brazil, Argentina
The four infected in Brazil, all young adults, are doing well and only one is still hospitalized, Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said in Brasilia yesterday. All four contracted the virus while in Mexico or the U.S. and there is “no risk of deaths” among them, he said.
“The virus has arrived in Brazil but it is not spreading here,” Temporao said. “There are no records of transmission from one person to another person in Brazil.”
Argentina’s Health Minister Graciela Ocana said the infected person arrived in the country from Mexico on April 25. About 48 hours later, he presented symptoms, was isolated and treated, and has been released from the hospital, Ocana said in Buenos Aires, without being more specific on the symptoms.
Japanese Case
The six-year-old Japanese boy in Chicago is recovering, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said. The foreign ministry was informed of the case through the boy’s family via consular officials in the U.S., Japan’s Nakasone said.
Hong Kong, which confirmed its first case of swine flu on May 1, is scheduled today to release about 350 people after a seven-day quarantine. Most were guests and employees of the hotel where the infected person stayed.
In the U.S., an outbreak in Illinois led to a jump in the number of confirmed cases to at least 896, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today on its Web site. The cases include two U.S. deaths and may represent a fraction of those infected, officials said.
Illinois cases totaled 204, the CDC said. Most of the surge is attributable to the state’s new testing capability, Illinois officials said. Before this week, only the CDC lab in Atlanta could definitively identify U.S. cases of swine flu. Test kits were delivered May 5 to laboratories in all 50 states.
No Sign
“As we look at the data so far, we’re not seeing any sign that this is petering out,” said Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC. “We’re still in the upswing of what we call the epidemic curve. We see ongoing transmission and we expect that to continue.”
Disease trackers are monitoring 88 cases in Spain and 34 in the U.K. to determine whether the virus has established itself outside North America. Such a finding would prompt the WHO to declare a pandemic, the first since 1968, the agency said.
The WHO panel next week will determine whether to go ahead with production of a swine flu shot and may later ask companies to stop making seasonal flu vaccines to free manufacturing capacity, said Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO’s initiative on vaccine research.
“We are very early in the epidemic,” Kieny said. “We have recommended for all manufacturers to put everything into place to be able to start manufacturing the vaccines.”
The WHO determined that a swine flu shot would have to be made in separate plants from the seasonal flu version. The swine flu vaccine may also require a follow-up booster shot to be effective because it is an entirely new strain, Kieny said.
Younger Patients
Data so far suggest that the virus affects youth more than seasonal influenza, and that younger patients are entering hospitals, the CDC’s Besser said. Few with swine flu are older than 60, and the median age is 16. It’s possible that older people have greater immunity or that younger people spread the disease on spring break vacation trips to Mexico, he said.
The virus is milder than originally thought and has rooted itself in communities across the country, making containment impossible, Besser said. Even if symptoms remain mild, the ease with which the new virus spreads makes it a threat, he said.
Mexico, the country where 42 of the deaths from the virus occurred, yesterday reduced its emergency alert level for swine flu to “yellow,” or medium, from “orange,” or elevated warning.
The change allows businesses such as bars, gymnasiums and theaters to reopen under the city’s sanitary guidelines. The Mexican government said swine flu is in “stabilization” and new cases are declining.
Southern Hemisphere Season
The virulence of swine flu may reveal itself when the Southern Hemisphere faces its influenza season beginning this month through September, Besser said. Scientists will watch the virus to see whether it becomes the dominant flu strain or mutates into a deadlier illness.
“To date, we have shared the virus with China, Japan and South Korea for research and vaccine development,” Besser told the Bangkok conference through a live video broadcast today. “Virus seed strains for a vaccine are in development and will be shared when available with manufacturers around the world.”
Sanofi-Aventis SA of Paris, Baxter International Inc. of Deerfield, Illinois, and London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc are talking with world health authorities about producing shots.
Baxter has received a sample of the virus from the WHO and is taking steps to produce a vaccine, Chris Bona, a company spokesman, said yesterday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on May 6 licensed Sanofi’s new vaccine plant in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.
Authorities advised hand washing, hygiene and staying home if sick as the most effective ways to control the outbreak. The WHO and CDC said closing borders or killing animals are costly steps that wouldn’t slow the spread of the flu.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net; Lisa Rapaport in New York at lrapaport1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: May 7, 2009 23:17 EDT |
