 n April 2009, the H1N1 virus (referred to as “Swine Flu” previously but was later named “Influenza A”) was first detected in people in the United States. Other countries, including Mexico and Canada, have reported people sick with this new virus.Actually, the scientists who coined the name Influenza A, Swine Flu, or even H1N1 are not accurately naming this virus. This virus is a never-seen-before mixture of four different genetic strains: North American swine flu, North American avian flu, human A/H1N1, and a swine flu strain found in Asia and Europe.
Steps taken to prevent outbreak.
In this globalised world, different countries seem to be responding differently to the Influenza A outbreak.
In the United States, the country with the largest number of cases, there are no thermal scanners at the airports. In Japan, with more than 900 cases, travellers only need to fill a health declaration form.
In Singapore and Malaysia, airports have thermal scanners, hospitals have special tents for suspected cases, quarantine is mandatory and schools have been
closed.
Although new, this flu does not appear to be fatal. The World Health Organisation
update on 26 June 2009 lists 59,814 confirmed cases with only 263 deaths, giving a mortality rate around 0.5%. To look at it another way, only 1 out of 200 H1N1 patients will die. That is a lot lower than the death rate of dengue cases. The recovery rate of H1N1 in Malaysia is also very high. As of 6 July 2009, from the overall 434 confirmed cases, 343 had recovered while 91 are being treated in hospital.
Another interesting finding regarding the H1N1 victims, almost all who died had underlying conditions like asthma or some other respiratory illness before they contracted the H1N1 flu. Their bodies were than too weak to handle the additional viral attack and thus they succumbed to it.
Our response to the flu outbreak may have been inappropriately influenced by the experience with SARS, which had a mortality rate ranging from 15 to 19 per cent. In fact, the American Center for Disease Control (CDC) states that "not all patients with suspected Influenza A need to be seen by a healthcare provider, only patients
with severe illness or those at high risk of complications".
The document (which is at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/identifyingpatients.htm) gives detailed advice on how to care for a patient at home and how to prevent the spread of the virus among members of the same household. Here in Malaysia and Singapore, we quarantine the entire household, forbidding them from even going out for food.
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