UK on swine flu alert

Louise (Admin) · UK on swine flu alert

The UK is on swine flu alert after the virus killed more than 100 people in Mexico and spread to the US and Canada.

Medical teams are working out ways to prevent the spread of the new human strain of the virus usually associated with pigs and Government officials have met for emergency discussions.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said the outbreak was "unusual and of concern".

She said surveillance arrangements in the UK were being "stepped up" but added: "It is too early to make a complete assessment of the health implications of this new virus or if it could represent the appearance of a potential pandemic strain of influenza virus."

Health Protection Agency chiefs said it was "sensible" to plan for cases in the UK.

The Government said it has enough medicine to treat half the population.

Two people are still undergoing tests in Lanarkshire after returning from Mexico with mild flu-like symptoms.

The disease has claimed 103 lives in Mexico with as many as 1,600 carrying the virus. Cases have been confirmed in countries including the US, Spain and New Zealand.

Passengers returning to Heathrow from Mexico City are being kept aboard their planes while health officials ask them if they feel unwell and assess anyone's symptoms and travel history.

No cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Britain.

The NHS has a stockpile of more than £500 million worth of the Tamiflu anti-viral drug which has proved effective on patients in Mexico, and scientists are working on developing a vaccine against the new strain, said Mr Johnson.

The Department of Health said it had stepped up surveillance arrangements, adding that the UK has enough antiviral stocks to provide treatment for 50 per cent of the population should they become ill.

"We put plans in place earlier this year to increase supplies of flu drugs, making the UK one of the most prepared countries in the world," a spokesman said.

"Agreements made with Roche and GlaxoSmithKline earlier this year doubled our antiviral stockpiles. The contracts brought our total capacity to 33.5 million treatment courses."

Under the civil contingencies committee system - known as Cobra - cross-departmental representatives met to plan how to deal with any outbreak.

As the World Bank provided Mexico with more than £136 million in loans to help it deal with the outbreak, the World Health Organisation warned countries around the world to look out for unusual flu cases as the virus spread from the central American country.

WHO director-general Margaret Chan said the outbreak, caused when the H1N1 strain associated with pigs crossed over to the human population, constituted a "public health emergency of international concern".

Nations will be expected to step up reporting and surveillance of the contagious respiratory disease, which she said had "pandemic potential".

Lady Rachel

They reckon they are ready for it here...lets hope so.

Julie C

Swine flu cases confirmed in UK

Nicola Sturgeon says the pair are recovering in a hospital in Airdrie
Two people admitted to a Scottish hospital after returning from a holiday in Mexico have been confirmed as the UK's first swine flu cases.

Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said both individuals were recovering well in a Lanarkshire hospital from mild cases of the virus.

It comes after Health Secretary Alan Johnson told the Commons 25 possible cases had been reported in the UK.

Nine of those have proved negative, while 14 are still being investigated.

Those 14 individuals were well enough to be managed in the community, Mr Johnson told MPs.

Announcing the results of the Scottish cases, Ms Sturgeon said: "I would reiterate that the threat to the public remains low.

"The precautionary actions we have taken over the last two days have been important in allowing us to respond appropriately and give us the best prospect of disrupting the spread of the virus."

Meanwhile, UK tourists have been warned against travel to Mexico and other directly affected areas by the EU Health Commissioner.

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on Monday that 149 people had died after contracting suspected swine flu.

However, there have been no deaths elsewhere.

See map showing confirmed and suspected cases

The Department of Health (DoH) has said surveillance arrangements are being "stepped up" in the UK.

Among the UK cases that were reported were the two people in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, and a 62-year-old female Canadian visitor to Sale, Greater Manchester, who was taken to hospital as a precaution after showing flu-like symptoms.

NHS Northwest say the tests on the woman in Manchester have proved negative, and her case has been downgraded to being an unspecified viral infection.

Facemask advice

Mr Johnson also said the government proposed to use its stockpile of anti-viral drugs to treat patients showing symptoms of the disease, should the virus start spreading in the UK.

He added: "People will wish to know whether they should wear facemasks.

"Although we are aware that facemasks are being given out to the public in Mexico, the available scientific evidence does not support the general wearing of facemasks by those who are not ill, whilst going about their normal activities."

Alan Johnson: 'The UK has been preparing for a flu pandemic for five years'
And Mr Johnson said preparations had been going on to cope with a flu pandemic for the last five years.

"We have established a stockpile of enough anti-virals to treat more than 33m people, that is to say half of the UK population," he said.

There are fears that the virus has begun to spread around the world:

There are 40 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in the US, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada and one in Spain, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday
Tests are also being carried out on individuals or groups in New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Britain and Israel who fell ill following travel to Mexico
The United States and the European Union have urged travellers to Mexico to exercise caution
WHO experts are meeting to consider raising the global pandemic alert level.
EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said: "I'd try to avoid non-essential travel to the areas which are reported to be in the centre of the cluster in order to minimise the personal risk and to reduce the potential risk to spread the infection to other people."

England's Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said a potential pandemic would mean "many many more people becoming ill than occur every winter with the normal seasonal flu".

SWINE FLU
Swine flu is a respiratory disease thought to spread through coughing and sneezing
Symptoms mimic those of normal flu - but in Mexico people are beginning to die
Good hygiene like using a tissue and washing hands thoroughly can help reduce transmission

Warnings as swine virus spreads
Q&A: Swine flu
He added: "If a new pandemic does start as a result of this outbreak in Mexico and the United States, we can't make it go away, but what we can do through our plans, particularly our stockpiles of anti-virals, is mitigate its effect."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was "right that we put the issue of swine fever on the foreign ministers' agenda" because there needed to be "maximum European co-ordination" on the issue.

Agency procedures

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) has a procedure for confirming whether or not a patient has swine flu.

If a patient rings their GP or NHS Direct to report symptoms, they will be told to stay at home, not to visit a surgery or hospital.

The HPA has prepared an "algorithm" - in essence, a flow chart - for suspected cases. On the phone, or possibly even face to face depending on the circumstances, the patient's GP or NHS Direct will take the patient through the algorithm.

If the answers to the algorithm lead the questioner to believe the patient may have swine flu, a sample will be taken that will then be sent to one of the HPA's network of regional labs for testing.

If the sample is confirmed as influenza type A, it will then be sent to the HPA's Reference Lab at the Centre for Infections in Colindale, where they will carry out genetic typing on it and establish whether it is a confirmed case of swine flu.

There have also been cases of swine flu reported in Canada and a suspected case in France.

Medical correspondent Fergus Walsh sees what UK scientists are doing about swine flu

However, no-one outside of Mexico has yet died, leading to suggestions that the severity of the cases there may be due to the strain mixing with a second unrelated virus circulating in the community.

UK-based pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline said it had supplied 100,000 packs of flu drug Relenza and 170,000 additional doses of its seasonal flu vaccine to the Mexican authorities, at their request, since the outbreak began.

Swine flu is usually found in pigs and contracted only by people in contact with the animals.

Contingency plans

The DoH said they could not yet give details of what the "stepped up" surveillance arrangements were and that meetings were ongoing, adding that the outbreak was "unusual and of concern".

Professor Steve Field is the chairman of the Royal College of GPs, which heads research into flu in the UK.

He says the coming days will be crucial in assessing the scale of the threat to the UK if people do contract swine flu.

He said: "We'll know a lot more... tomorrow and by the end of the week.

"What we've got to try and do is stop people who've come in from Mexico, places where this is prevalent, going to their GPs and spreading it amongst vulnerable people. That's what's really important this week."

In trading on the London stock market, shares in British Airways were down 7.4% and Thomas Cook fell 4.3% on fears over the economic impact of the swine flu outbreak.

Mexico: 149 dead - 26 confirmed cases
United States: 40 confirmed cases of swine flu
Canada: 6 confirmed cases
UK: 2 confirmed cases
Spain: 1 confirmed case
UK, Spain, Israel, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand: suspected cases being tested

Dolly Dimple

I've just read that 120 million people are going to die..... Weren't we all guna die from Bird Flu

Saftlad

We're all doomed

(said in a Scottish accent)

FlakeySugarButt

A woman I work with went to a wedding at the weekend, and the couple were due to fly out to Mexico for their honeymoon. They didn't go.

It is very scary though.

Lady Rachel

Agree it is scary. But I think it will be ok.

Blondie

The World Health Organisation has warned the first flu pandemic in 40 years is imminent.

Director General Margaret Chan raised the official alert level to phase 5, the last step before a global outbreak is declared, and called for countries to implement emergency plans.

She said the first potential pandemic since the 1968 outbreak of Hong Kong Flu had "the capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world" but added that governments are "better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history."

In Mexico, where as many as 176 people have died from the H1N1 strain, citizens were told to stay at home for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy.

Ten countries have reported cases of the H1N1 strain, and Texas officials said a 22-month-old boy had died while on a family visit from Mexico, the first confirmed swine flu death outside the country.

But US President Barack Obama said there was no need for panic and rejected the possibility of closing the border with Mexico.

In Mexico City, all schools, restaurants, nightclubs and public events have been shut down to try to stop the disease from spreading, bringing normal life to a virtual standstill.

Nearly a week after the virus emerged, 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.

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, and many tourists were hurrying to leave, crowding airports.

Some experts have questioned the wisdom of depleting stocks of anti-viral drugs to battle H1N1, which outside Mexico has caused largely mild symptoms.

Masato Tashiro, head of the influenza virus research centre at Japan's National Institute of Infectious Disease and a member of the WHO emergency committee, said: "The virus is relatively weak and about the same as regular influenza viruses passed on via human-to-human contact. I don't believe it will become virulent.

"The threat to health from the avian influenza and its fatality rate is much greater than the new flu.

"I am very worried that we will use up the stockpile of anti-flu medicine and be unarmed before we need to fight against the avian influenza. The greatest threat to mankind remains the H5N1 avian influenza."

dawn

a old friend of keiths posted on her ffacebook that her parents are still out there

Julie C

Hope they are ok

take care luv Juliexx

FlakeySugarButt

Hope they're doing alright.

We've been making preparations at work. We've ordered tons of alcohol antibac gel stuff which is in pump bottles on the reception and dispensary desks as well as dotted about the surgery in other places. We've got masks and all sorts coming next week, and we've posted up notices asking people with flu like symptoms to stay away and a doctor will contact them and phone triage them. We're just waiting now.

Dolly Dimple

Am I bad for not taking it seriously?

Saftlad

If you are Dolly than so am I

dawn

the thing is as bad as it is... u can think too much about it and make urself ill by worrying about it

FlakeySugarButt

I don't think you're bad Dolly. There was the same panic about Bird Flu and that never came.

We are well overdue for a HUGE Flu pandemic though, so it will come. It's just a matter of when.

Obviously for us being a GP surgery we have to take it seriously and take precautionary measures, but it's best not to think about it too much until it actually happens. Deal with it then. You'll go nuts otherwise.

Dolly Dimple

phewwww I'm not bad then

I just hate the way these things are reported its as if we're all doomed and as I stated before 20 million of us are going to die!!!! NOT

Don't know how many jokes are out there about this but my phone never stops beeping

Lady Rachel

did anyone else get an information booklet about it through their doors?

We got one yesterday.

Dolly Dimple

We haven't received 1 yet but we're going too

Wash Your Hands!!

hakkie

Not got ours either, but am waiting on cds, so know which i want to get first!

Julie C

Got ours through the post take care luv Juliexx

Saftlad

This came through the post with mine....................

Louise (Admin)

Dolly Dimple

Brilliant

I saw this online earlier and laughed!!!!

Lady Rachel

nearly lost my cup of tea

hakkie

where did you nearly lose it Rach?

I had a tight hold of my wine!!

Nice one saftlad, wicked!

steel bat

Lol the flu remedy!

Just googled the population of Mexico City - around 20 million - when considered that even there only around a hundred have lost their lives it puts it a bit more in proportion.
It is of course serious for those that do get ill and tragic for those lost and their families.

hakkie

got my pig leaflet today, but am waitnig cds still!

has everyone read it? i was good i read it

catch it bin it kill it!!!!

Saftlad

And thats just the postman

hakkie

well, it could be the leaflet, but it meant your bogeys Saftlad!

Saftlad

Dolly Dimple

Julie C

Awful

Take care luv Juliexx

*ghost-woman*

CMPunkLiddell4Life

Swine Flu = nothing to worry about over here.

Just, over-hype and fear mongering from our "trusty" media and government.

Dolly Dimple

Mr Dimps found this clip about the NEW!! Swine Flu Epidemic

http://www.tpuc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2109

Blondie

my town is very badly infected with it at the moment. Kids have got it in the school my mum works at, infact one of the kids is in her class!

Dolly Dimple

I believe its very real as I have a friend who's son has it :o{ The above clip is from 1976 though

Lady Rachel

a friend a works son has it. she hasn't been allowed in since.

Blondie

my mum's school has got 4 kids with it and they are all allowed to come to school. Some of the staff are going mad, as one of the teachers of the kids, has no immune system due to having her spleen removed, and in the same class is a very ill child with a life expectancy of no more than 15 and although the school have told his parents that he should stay at home for now, his parents send him in every day

Dolly Dimple

That's disgusting Frankie how irresponsible of the school!!

Dolly Dimple

Rachel I hope your friends son is getin better x x

Blondie

F.K.R.

well the school will be closed if it keeps up

Dolly Dimple

Is it the media who's making it sound so awful in the light of the guidelines you've mentioned

FlakeySugarButt

Our surgery is on a sort of full alert now. We're having to question all patients to see if they have flu like symptoms and if they do then they're advised to stay at home and a doctor will call them to triage them based on the information we've been provided with about the full symptoms of Swine Flu. If they have a combination of symptoms from the guidlines we issue a script and they go to the chemist for treatment. There are no swabs or tests being done now to confirm diagnosis, the advice we've got is if suspicious just to treat.

Lady Rachel

our school have advised us to stay away if we have flu like symptons, until we have seen a doctor.