Swine Flu Upsets Rituals of Greeting

…the era of swine flu poses the thorny challenge of how to express cordiality, friendship, even love — while staying, as the authorities recommend, at least three to five feet away from anyone who coughs, sneezes or might otherwise show signs of infection with the H1N1 virus.

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Handshakes have been cut short, kisses aborted. Warm embraces have been supplanted by curt pats on the back.

Full Article: here.

France facing ‘la bise’ ban over swine flu fears

It is as French as croissants and coffee, but “la bise”, France’s age-old method of greeting with a peck on the cheek, is facing a ban due to fears that kissing is the best way to catch swine flu.

Companies and schools have started outlawing the traditional French social ritual following a health ministry warning that it could turn into the kiss of death for the nation in the event of a winter H1N1 pandemic.

Large companies like Axa, the insurance giant, have told employees to salute each other with a wave of the hand rather than a kiss or firm handshake.

Full Article: here.

Parishioners To No Longer Offer Handshake As Sign Of Peace

St. Veronica Church staff distributed a flier at weekend Masses advising that participants should no longer hold hands for the “Our Father” prayer or shake hands during the “sign of peace.”

Full Article: here.

Swedish politician mulls Thai bows to counter swine flu

While several local parishes of the Church of Sweden are advocating the use of fortified wine to prevent the spread of swine flu during communion, a Swedish politician is proposing a different measure to prevent the virus from spreading – the introduction of traditional Thai greetings in an effort to reduce direct contact.

Full Article: here.

CMAJ editorial urges pandemic vaccine without adjuvant for high-risk groups

An editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal is urging the government to fast-track pandemic H1N1 vaccine for high-risk groups.

And to do that, it suggests offering these groups the vaccine without an adjuvant, a boosting compound that may stretch limited supplies.

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Using adjuvanted vaccine offers the benefit of faster delivery of enough vaccine to meet Canada’s needs. For instance, it could allow a half dose or a third of a dose to be used for each person, such that each batch that rolls off the production line will protect more people than vaccine without adjuvant.

Full Article: here.

Read the CMAJ editorial here.

Study: Half of health staff would refuse swine flu shot, despite plans to vaccinate them first

About half of Hong Kong’s health workers would refuse the swine flu vaccine, new research says, a trend that experts say would likely apply worldwide.

In a study that polled 2,255 Hong Kong health workers this year, researchers found even during the height of global swine flu panic in May, less than half were willing to get vaccinated.

Most said they would pass on the swine flu shot, which is not yet available, because they were afraid of side effects and doubted how safe and effective it would be.

Full Article: here.

Special pandemic fees for doctors ‘outrageous’: nurses’ federation

It’s “outrageous” that any Canadian doctors should be negotiating extra fees for treating H1N1 flu patients during a pandemic, says the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses.

Linda Silas said she was “stunned” to hear doctors in Alberta have negotiated a special payment rate as high as $518 an hour, in the event the provincial government is forced to declare a public health emergency over the flu pandemic. Alberta nurses, who are salaried employees of the health system, will not be offered enhanced payment.

Full Article: here.

Food and Drug Administration authorizes emergency use of swine flu test for US troops overseas

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it has authorized the emergency use of a swine flu test for U.S. troops overseas, allowing the military to speed up diagnoses and treatment of a virus that could cause widespread infections again this fall.

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The authorization allows for the use of unapproved medical products or unapproved uses of approved medical products during a public health emergency, the FDA said.

The FDA said the test will help to speed up diagnosis of H1N1 infections so that deployed troops can quickly begin treatment.

Full Article: here.

In April, Egypt ordered a complete cull of the country’s pig population. Approximately 350,000 pigs were slaughtered.

Unfortunately, Egypt’s garbage management industry, which features one of the world’s highest recycling rates at 85%, was pig-dependent. Organic waste which previously was sorted out and fed to the pigs, is now piling up as rubbish — leading to major garbage and health problems.

Read more: here.

“Three amigos” summit dominated by swine flu, trade

Leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada gather on Monday to present a united front to try to limit the spread of the H1N1 swine flu, but there is less unity on simmering trade issues.
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The leaders, sometimes referred to as “the three amigos,” are expected to issue a joint communique stressing their shared commitment to keep a predicted resurgence in the H1N1 virus this autumn as limited as possible.

A senior Obama administration official said the goal was to ensure that the people of the three countries are fully informed about steps to mitigate the spread of the virus, which is believed to have originated in Mexico last spring.

Full Article: here.

>>Tamiflu approved for Canadian babies

Canadian infants under one year old who are sick with the flu may receive the antiviral drug Tamiflu, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced Thursday under new swine flu pandemic guidelines.

The Public Health Agency of Canada prepared the interim guidance to help doctors treating infants with influenza-like illness during the H1N1 pandemic.

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“Although there are limited data supporting the use of Tamiflu in children under one, there now exists an urgent need for recommendations to treat this population, given this group’s increased risk for morbidity and mortality from influenza,” the agency said on its website.

Full Article: here.

>>Flu pandemic planning underway

Many businesses in Canada developed plans following the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002 and the emergence and spread of the avian flu, and those have been pulled from the shelves and dusted off since the swine-flu outbreak started in late April.

Those plans are now being tested and companies are determining how they can be applied to the swine-flu pandemic that has made more than 10,000 Canadians sick.

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Bell Canada, for example, a company that has had two employees confirmed with swine flu, started developing a pandemic plan about three years ago and activated it in the spring when swine flu began to emerge. Adjustments, however, had to be made.

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Communication with employees is central to all the plans, said Michelis, and to that end Bell has been keeping staff up-to-date through internal e-mails and a pandemic website. It has also put up posters in company washrooms about proper hygiene and provided hand sanitizers. The company plans to host flu-shot clinics in the fall for its 42,000 employees.

Bell’s business is designated by the government as part of the country’s critical infrastructure and, as such, the company must have an emergency management plan, under which its pandemic plan falls.

Full Article: here.

>>Flu death toll at 700, school closures an option-WHO

The H1N1 virus has killed more than 700 people worldwide since emerging in April, and countries could consider closing schools to slow its spread, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.
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Some 125,000 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported worldwide as of Tuesday, Bhatiasevi told Reuters.

Full Article: here.

>>Firms need pandemic crisis plan, report says

Amid reports of H1N1 virus outbreaks at summer camps and the prospect things could get worse this fall, more companies are being warned they need to prepare for a possible pandemic.

The Conference Board of Canada issued a report yesterday urging organizations of all kinds to act while they still have time.

Full Article: here.

>>WHO stops giving global swine flu tally

Swine flu is moving around the globe at “unprecedented speed,” the World Health Organisation said Friday, as it stopped giving figures on the numbers affected worldwide.

The WHO said in an information note on its website Friday that it would focus on regular updates from newly affected countries, in order to keep track of the global progress of the new influenza A(H1N1) pandemic.

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The agency said the counting of all individual cases was no longer essential to assess the risk from swine flu, so it was best to watch the virus’s appearance in new territories.

Full Article: here.

>>Argentina declares emergency after flu found in pigs

Argentina’s government declared on Friday a national sanitary emergency due to the presence of the new H1N1 flu virus in pigs.

Earlier this month, animal health officials said workers at a pig farm in Buenos Aires province were suspected of having passed the new strain onto the animals.

Source: here.

>>CDC: U.S. may need 600 million swine flu vaccine doses

Questions abound about how to best inoculate the world against swine flu as health officials plan for a campaign that could dwarf any previous flu vaccination effort.

Among the issues to be resolved are the amount of vaccine likely to be available, the timing of the vaccine’s availability, how it would be distributed, who would provide the shots, who would pay for them and whether it will be possible to track potential side effects.

At a recent meeting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health officials said U.S. demand could reach 600 million doses of vaccine, enough for two doses for each of the approximate 300 million people in the United States. That’s in case two doses are required for children and adults under 50, CDC representatives said.

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Small studies in ferrets at the CDC suggest that when compared with seasonal flu, the virus appears to cause more severe disease but also seems to spread less easily.

Full Article: here.

>>UN chief: $1 billion needed against swine flu

The United Nations may need more than $1 billion this year to help poor countries fight the swine flu pandemic, the world body’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

“The funding has not been flowing as we have been expecting,” Ban said. “We are now mobilizing all resources possible.”

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“Many of the developing countries have weak health systems,” said Chan. “They actually go into this pandemic what I call empty-handed. They don’t have antivirals. They don’t have vaccines. They don’t have antibiotics.”

Full Article: here.

>>Harry Potter actor tells of swine flu fear

Actor Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films, spoke Monday of his fears after contracting swine flu, saying he initially thought he might die.

Grint described contracting the A(H1N1) virus, which has spread around the world, as “quite scary” but he recovered after spending a few days in bed.

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The 20-year-old’s publicist confirmed on Saturday that he had suffered from the virus, taking several days off filming the next movie in the blockbuster series, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

Full Article: here.

>>Drug-resistant swine flu seen in Danish patient

For the first time, a case of swine flu has proven resistant to Tamiflu — the leading pharmaceutical weapon against the new virus, international health officials said Monday.

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It appears the strain developed in a patient who was taking the drug to prevent illness, and it has not spread to others. That’s a much better scenario than if the patient had not been taking Tamiflu and picked up a drug-resistant strain already spreading through the public, said Bridges, associate director for science in the CDC’s influenza division.

Full Article: here.

>>Mexican swine flu victims were young, some healthy

Swine flu patients in Mexico were young and many were healthy before developing severe infections, doctors reported on Monday.

The first detailed studies of the outbreak of a new strain of H1N1 influenza show the epidemic in Mexico resembled the early stages of other pandemics, and showed there is no way yet to predict who will become severely ill from the virus.

Full Article: here.

>>Swine flu parties ‘a bad idea’

Throwing “swine flu parties” in an attempt to get immunity against the virus while it is a fairly mild form is not a good idea, doctors say.

Reports have emerged of people intentionally mixing with friends who have flu.

Their reasoning is that it is best to be infected before the winter when the virus could become more deadly.

But public health expert Dr Richard Jarvis said such behaviour could undermine the fight against swine flu.

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But he added that if people actively sought to get flu, health services may not be able to act in the same way as they are doing now.

The approach to date – although it is changing in the areas such as Birmingham and London which have the largest outbreaks – has been based on containment.

Full Article: here.