At least one million people in the United States are infected with the novel H1N1 flu virus, far more than the official case count, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. The startling statistic is based on epidemiologic modeling, CDC’s Lyn Finelli told the Advisory Committee For Immunization Practices, a group that advises the U.S. government on vaccine use. ACIP has met for the past 3 days in Atlanta to discuss, among other things, ways to contain the pandemic.

The pandemic flu vaccine isn’t ready yet, nor are recommendations on who should get it. But states and cities should already start planning for a massive vaccination campaign this fall. Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told journalists during a press conference following the ACIP meeting. She said they should think about how to get the vaccine to those at the highest risk for severe illness: “We want states and communities and health care providers to be thinking about how they would be able to vaccinate younger people, pregnant women, people who have underlying health conditions like diabetes and asthma.”

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The A(H1N1) swine flu virus has struck a pig farm in Buenos Aires province in Argentina—the second known instance of the pandemic virus infecting pigs. The outbreak was announced in a statement by Argentina’s food safety agency SENASA on Wednesday;…

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26 June 2009 07:00 GMT

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During week 24 (June 14-20, 2009), influenza activity decreased in the United States, however, there were still higher levels of influenza-like illness than is normal for this time of year.

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As of 7:00 PM ET on June 25, 2009, CDC is reporting 27,717 confirmed and probable cases and 127 deaths in 53 states and territories (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands). On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6 in response to the ongoing global spread of the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus. A Phase 6 designation indicates that a global pandemic is underway.

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An EUA online course developed by the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide public health officials, emergency managers, or Strategic National Stockpile coordinators with an introduction to the Emergency Use Authorization of medical products.

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(ChinaPost.com.tw) – Thailand worried about a swine flu outbreak on a naval base Thursday after seven cadets tested positive and 200 more fell ill, while three more American students visiting Cambodia were diagnosed with the disease.

Press reports said Papua New Guinea’s health minister was quarantined with flu symptoms and was awaiting results of tests after visiting Australia.

In Thailand, Navy Commander Admiral Kamthorn Pumhiran said the seven cadets who tested positive for the virus were at Sattahib Naval Base, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Bangkok.

He said the other cadets with symptoms were isolated in separate quarters at the base. They are all in stable condition and being tested for the virus. Thailand reported 69 new cases Thursday, bringing the national total to 1,054.

Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bun Heng told reporters that three students who arrived from the U.S. state of Texas on June 19 had tested positive for the virus. They ranged in age from 16 to 20 and raised Cambodia’s total cases to four.

On Wednesday, authorities announced the country’s first swine flu case in a 16-year-old girl — part of the student group — who developed flu symptoms a day after arriving. She sought medical care Monday.

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The H1N1 (swine flu) virus has reached the sub-Saharan African countries of Cape Verde, Ethiopia and Ivory Coast, according to the WHO, the AP/Boston Herald reports. Last week, South Africa became the first country in the region to confirm a 12-year-old, who had returned from the U.S., tested positive for the H1N1 virus.

“WHO says African countries are particularly vulnerable because of their fragile health care systems and the widespread presence of other health problems such as HIV and tuberculosis,” the AP/Boston Herald writes (AP/Boston Herald, 6/24).

There have been no newly confirmed cases of H1N1 in Ethiopia since two patients tested positive for the virus last week, according to the Ethiopian Minister of Health, Ethiopian Review reports (Tesfaye, Ethiopian Review, 6/24).

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Oculus Innovative Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:OCLS), a healthcare company that develops, manufactures and markets a family of products based upon the Microcyn® Technology platform, which includes new formulations intended to reduce the use of antibiotics by preventing or treating infections including those caused by bacteria and viruses, has confirmed the effectiveness of Microcyn® Technology at inactivating the H1NI Swine Influenza A. In a virucidal time-kill suspension test conducted by an independent laboratory, BioScience Laboratories, Inc., the specific Microcyn Technology formulation reduced infectivity of the swine flu virus by 4.00log10 (99.99%) reduction after just 30-seconds exposure. BioScience Laboratories, working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, received formal approval to acquire, house and evaluate the specific swine influenza virus in April 2009.

Oculus is preparing the study data for submission to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to help accelerate global awareness of Microcyn Technology’s ability to effectively and safely reduce the incidence of transmission of this pandemic virus. However, specific product formulations of the Microcyn Technology have not yet been reviewed or approved by any regulatory body for a specific swine flu indication.

“We experienced increased consumer use of our Microcyn-based products in April and May when the swine flu first hit in Mexico,” says Sergio Caleti, sales director of Oculus Innovative Sciences of Mexico. “This resulted in an uptick in product sales along with a corresponding increase in market awareness of the Microcyn Technology in Mexico. We are leveraging this increased name recognition with the introduction this year of a family of Mexican consumer products including a new pediatric skin treatment and smaller consumer packaging for the Microcyn-based wound care products.”

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A story in yesterday’s New York Times was headlined: In New Theory, Swine Flu Started in Asia, Not Mexico. That sounded pretty interesting. What’s the new evidence? The answer? None. Just speculation. So what’s going on?

Contrary to the popular assumption that the new swine flu pandemic arose on factory farms in Mexico, federal agriculture officials now believe that it most likely emerged in pigs in Asia, but then traveled to North America in a human.
But they emphasized that there was no way to prove their theory and only sketchy data underpinning it.

There is no evidence that this new virus, which combines Eurasian and North American genes, has ever circulated in North American pigs, while there is tantalizing evidence that a closely related “sister virus” has circulated in Asia.

American breeding pigs, possibly carrying North American swine flu, are frequently exported to Asia, where the flu could have combined with Asian strains. But because of disease quarantines that make it hard to import Asian pigs, experts said, it is unlikely that a pig brought the new strain back West.

“The most likely scenario is that it came over in the mammalian species that moves most freely around the world,” said Dr. Amy L. Vincent, a swine flu specialist at the Agriculture Department’s laboratory in Ames, Iowa, referring, of course, to people. (Don McNeil, New York Times)

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