Malaysia: A(H1N1) - Three more deaths !

A six-year-old child with Down's Syndrome and a hole in the heart is the latest of three deaths resulting from complications due to influenza A (H1N1).

Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the child who died on Thursday of "pneumonia with underlying Down's Syndrome and Pulmonary Hypertension" was admitted to the hospital on Aug 9 after suffering for two days of H1N1 symptoms.

He said another three-year-old also succumbed to H1N1 complications after being admitted to the hospital on Aug 1 for fever and cough and suffering breathing difficulties for five days.

"The child died on Friday due to severe pneumonia," he told reporters after launching the Serdang Lifelong Health Carnival at SRJK (C) Serdang Baru 1 here.

Liow said the third death was a 50-year-old man who died on Friday after he was warded on Aug 3 due to fever, diarrhea, vomiting and breathing difficulty.

He said the man died of "septicemia with severe pneumonia".

He said the three deaths raised the H1N1 death toll in the country to 62, while 238 new cases brought the number of H1N1 infections to 3,857 cases, so far.

Liow said to date, 213 patients were being treated at the normal wards while 33 more were at the Intensive Care Unit, 16 of whom had risk factors such as chronic illnesses (7), asthma (3), obesity (2), mental illness (2), pregnancy (1) and post-delivery (1).

He said the Health Ministry found many of those infected with H1N1 did not cooperate well in controlling the pandemic.

He reminded the public to promptly seek treatment at nearby clinics or hospitals if they had H1N1 symptoms and reminded doctors to not postpone antiviral treatments to patients.

He said under Section 12 (1) of the Infectious Diseases Control Act 1988, anyone who knows of a disease that can spread to the public and purposely ignore quarantine warnings and infect others will be fined RM2,000 or a maximum penalty of RM10,000 or two years of imprisonment or both.

Meanwhile, patients who seek treatment at Sungai Buloh Hospital here for influenza-like symptoms have to wait for up to three hours or more.

Normah Sabdani, who took her three daughters aged 1 to 8 for a H1N1 check-up yesterday morning, was upset about the long wait.

Her daughters have been coughing for the past two weeks.

"There is a sign which says children below 2 years old and senior citizens will be given priority, but we have been waiting for three hours.

"The hospital should have opened more counters to check the patients," said the 27-year-old when met at the H1N1 check-up designated area near the emergency unit.

Patients who were there since early morning seemed ill and dozed off while waiting for their names to be called.

Checks at Pantai Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Tawakal Hospital found that no tests were conducted on those who wanted to check for the virus.

The staff at both hospitals said they would direct patients to government hospitals if they came for the H1N1 treatment.

Malaysia: Influenza A(H1N1): 6 more die, death toll 32

The number of casualties due to influenza A(H1N1) has reached 38 with six more deaths reported. The number of cases also climbed to 2,253 after 270 new cases emerged, Health Ministry Director General Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said.

"Out of the six deaths confirmed today, one happened yesterday while the other five happened earlier and confirmed to be H1N1-infected on Aug 7 and 8, but the cases were formally reported yesterday as H1N1-related deaths.

"Two of the victims died on Aug 5 and three on Aug 8. Four of the six were high-risk cases as they had chronic diseases or due to other factors like old age," said Dr Mohd Ismail.

At the moment, 67 people are being treated in hospitals for the contagious flu and 15 more in the intensive-care units, with three of them having chronic diseases, one is obese, one is in post-delivery and another is a baby.

Worldwide, the H1N1 virus has so far killed 1,688 people out of 208,155 reported cases in 174 countries.

Meanwhile,Misbun Sidek, coach of the Malaysian team participating in the World Badminton Championships in Hyderabad, has displayed symptoms of swine flu and his samples have been sent for testing for influenza A (H1N1) virus, organisers of the event said on Tuesday.

"Sidek complained of throat pain on Monday evening. His samples have been sent for testing. We don't want to take any chance. We are taking all precautions," Pullela Gopichand, director of the organising committee and Indian team coach, told IANS.

Some policemen at the venue of the championship were seen wearing masks on Monday night.

More than 250 players from 42 countries are competing in the six-day event that began on Monday. The championship is the first of the series of world-class sporting event that India would be hosting ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

It's official: Swine flu is pandemic !

It's official: We're in a swine flu pandemic, the World Health Organization declared today.

On the basis of available evidence and expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. The Director-General of WHO has therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to phase 6.

Pandemic Status Means Swine Flu Bug Is More Widespread, Not More Severe.

"The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, MD, said at a news conference.

That sounds scary. But neither the H1N1 swine flu virus nor the disease it causes are any worse today than they were weeks ago.

The only thing that's changed is that the WHO now officially acknowledges that H1N1 swine flu is circulating in communities in widespread parts of the globe, and that all nations can eventually expect to see cases.

"This does not mean there is any difference in the severity of the flu. This is not, at this point, a flu pandemic that is anywhere as severe as the 1918 pandemic," said Thomas R. Frieden, MD, in his first news conference since taking over as director of the CDC.

The last previous pandemic occurred in 1968.

As of Thursday, the virus had spread to 74 countries, the health agency said. There were 28,774 confirmed cases and 144 deaths.

The United States had 13,217 cases and 27 deaths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said June 5 in its weekly update. Cases have been reported in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Phase 6, Chan said, is meant as a signal to countries to recalibrate their strategies to minimize the harm from swine flu. In countries where the virus and the response to it are already widespread, it is not likely to mean significant changes, but Chan urged countries that have not seen cases, or seen only limited cases, to get ready.

"The virus is not stoppable," she said. "I would advise them to maintain vigilance, enhance surveillance and be prepared for the arrival of the novel H1N1 in their country."

Discussions about shifting to Phase 6 have been under way for weeks. Chan indicated that a major factor in the decision was surveillance from countries in the Southern Hemisphere, where flu season is under way. In Chile and Australia, two countries with many flu cases, she said H1N1 appears to be the dominant strain, "crowding out" the seasonal influenza virus.

Chan said she would recommend that vaccine manufacturers proceed with mass production of an inoculation against the new swine flu strain as soon as they finish production of seasonal vaccine, which she estimated would be complete in about two weeks.

Swine Flu seems to target the young, under 25 years of age, and its symptoms are those of a simple cold and fever. The WHO is asking anyone who presents these symptoms to have a check up. Means to reduce infection are the usual precautions: Good personal hygiene, such as washing hands, avoid crowded public places, or close contact with someone who has the virus.

For the WHO, one of the worst case scenarios for the future is a possible mutation of the A/H1N1 virus into a more virulent form that will hit the northern hemisphere next winter, following the same patter of the Spanish Flu of 1926 that killed upwards of 50 million people.

The last global pandemic was the Hong Kong Flu of 1968, which left 1 million people dead. Ordinary flu usually causes the deaths of between 250 to 500 thousand people.

In Malaysia, more drastic measures including greater screening at entry points into the country will kick in with the declaration of a pandemic for influenza A(H1N1), said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.

Other measures included taking passengers’ temperatures before disembarkation and controlling human traffic from an affected township or village, he said.

He said the ministry would be drawing up a plan to prepare Malaysia for a possible Level Six scenario.

Liow also announced that two more cases of influenza A (H1N1) had been confirmed in Malaysia, bringing the total to 11.