By VOA News

Health authorities in Latvia said their country has registered its first confirmed case of swine influenza A-H1N1.

Officials said the patient was hospitalized after flying home from a visit to the United States and Canada by way of Berlin.

Earlier, the Philippines closed down its lower house of Congress after a 49-year-old woman died from the influenza.

Health authorities said the woman, who worked in the legislature, died Friday from heart failure that was aggravated by severe pneumonia.

The A-H1N1 strain of swine flu that has spread around the world this year is a highly contagious new virus.

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By Pat Forgey, JUNEAU EMPIRE

State public health officials reported 13 new cases of swine flu Monday, including one new case in Juneau among Southeast Alaska’s five new ones.

Alaska’s first official cases of the H1N1 swine flu was in Fairbanks in May, and with most of the state’s early cases concentrated in the Interior. Southeast and the Interior now each have 11 cases, while the Southcentral communities of Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna have a total of 13.

There was also a single case in Homer, for a total of 36 statewide.

The latest Juneau case was a woman in her 60s, who was diagnosed at Bartlett Regional Hospital on June 8.

Two earlier Juneau cases were diagnosed at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium’s Juneau clinic.

The Juneau woman may be the oldest person in the state to come down with the flu. Health officials say those confirmed to have swine flu so far have ranged in age from 7 months to 63 years.

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By Neil Sands, AFP

Australia on Tuesday warned Aborigines may be at high risk from swine flu and rushed medical supplies to remote indigenous communities, as the country announced its second death linked to the virus.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said high disease rates among Aborigines, who suffer the country’s worst poverty and ill health, could make them particularly vulnerable.

“We know many of the chronic diseases that they suffer from are indicators that swine flu may actually hit them harder than some others in the community,” she told public radio.

A 26-year-old Aboriginal man with swine flu and other medical problems died in Adelaide on Friday, setting alarm bells ringing about the virus’s possible impact on the indigenous community.

On Tuesday, officials said a non-Aboriginal man, 35, who had swine flu and “significant underlying medical problems” had died in Victoria of apparent respiratory failure at the weekend.

Despite the country’s second swine flu-related death, Victoria’s acting chief health officer Rosemary Lester said the virus, which has infected 2,733 people here, was not considered life-threatening in most cases.

“It is important to remember that in the vast majority of cases, human swine flu is a mild illness which many people recover from without any medical treatment,” she said.

However, Health Minister Roxon said Aborigines may be a special case and authorities were working to boost their supplies of anti-viral drugs in the wake of the indigenous man’s death.

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Times Union

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Two students at Maple Avenue Middle School have confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu, a school official announced Monday.

Saratoga Springs Superintendent of Schools Janice White notified parents of the illnesses through letters and the district’s Web site. Classes end for the year on Wednesday, and the flu cases aren’t expected to interrupt testing, White said. The school asks parents to keep their children home if they show any symptoms.

“Despite confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu in school districts, as advised by the state and local health departments, students can safely attend classes and our schools will remain open at this time,” White wrote.

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By Stuart Rintoul, The Australian

THE mother of a Victorian man who died from swine flu on Saturday said last night there was no intensive care bed available in the state when he was diagnosed as suffering from pneumonia.

Judith Splatt told The Australian at her home in Colac, in the state’s west, that her son Anthony had collapsed at home about 1pm on Thursday. Mr Splatt, the second Australian to die from the virus, was 35 years old, had type 2 diabetes and was obese.

“He became very ill and needed an intensive care bed,” she said. “I would like it known that there was none in the state available at that time.

“The health people tell us our health system is wonderful, but … on Thursday afternoon, there was no bed available.”

Mr Splatt’s family said that, after being taken to Colac Hospital, her son was initially diagnosed as having pneumonia. He was not swabbed for the H1N1 virus until the following day, after an intensive care bed was found at Maroondah Hospital in Melbourne, and the results were only returned two days after his death.

Victoria’s acting chief health officer, Rosemary Lester, said Mr Splatt, whom she refused to identify, deteriorated so quickly he was unable to be treated with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

She said, incorrectly, that he had presented at Colac Hospital last Friday with a “flu-like illness” and that, like the West Australian man who last week became the nation’s first H1N1 fatality, he had a range of underlying medical conditions.

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By Bob Burgdorfer, Reuters

Summer is usually a profitable time for America’s hog producers but this year swine flu, recession and high feed prices have even the largest farmers operating deep in the red and some smaller ones on the brink of bankruptcy.

Before things get better, the weakest are expected to fail and even those that survive will need years to recover from the debts they have amassed during this lean time.

At farmer Eldon Gould’s spread west of Chicago, where he has been raising hogs for 40 years, 750 sows nurse their litters in individual stalls as the 67-year-old farmer tours the barns and inspects the baby pigs.

Once weaned, the pigs will be moved to another farm to be fattened into market hogs. But Gould says it’s unlikely the weak market will be faring any better by the time they are ready to be sold.

“It was a combination of the U.S. and global recession. People in the United States are buying less meat in general and I’m sure the same thing is going on globally,” said Gould, who usually produces about 15,000 pigs a year on his Maple Park farm about 50 miles west of Chicago.

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By Henry L. Davis, The Buffalo News

Complications from MRSA bacteria contribute to first local H1N1 fatality

Matthew Davis was a healthy Buffalo teenager who participated in sports before complaining of headaches June 13.

Within a few days, the 15-year-old student at Harvey Austin School 97 on Sycamore Street arrived seriously ill at Women & Children’s Hospital and then died Saturday, making him the first known fatality in Erie County caused by swine flu, officially known as novel H1N1 influenza.

It was a surprising turn of events for the family.

“He was a very healthy boy,” said his mother, Lucretia Belton.

What happened? By the time Matthew entered the hospital, he was seriously ill with the flu, as well as co-infected with a type of bacteria known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, according to health officials.

MRSA has been a problem in hospitals and nursing homes for decades, but has also spread to otherwise healthy people in the community, living normally on the skin and in the nose and throat. Research suggests that the overuse of antibiotics has contributed to the problem.

This bacteria can cause infections of the skin, nose, throat and ear. But in a small number of cases, especially in patients with weakened immune systems, it can lead to life-threatening pneumonia and blood infections.

An estimated 92 children die annually in the United States from regular influenza, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some of those deaths have been associated with coinfection with MRSA. As such, officials at the federal agency said last month they are closely following the development of the new H1N1 flu strain to see whether there is a similar co-infection with community-acquired MRSA in some cases.

In total, eight people, including two adults, have been hospitalized in Erie County since the first case of H1N1 was confirmed in the county May 11. Three children remain hospitalized in Women & Children’s with the new strain of the flu, including a 9-year-old student at Charles Drew Science Magnet School 59 in critical condition. Matthew and the 9-year-old also were infected with MRSA when they were admitted to the hospital.

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BY ERIN HAWLEY, WMBB NEWS 13

Bay County has three confirmed cases of swine flu.

The people infected are a 5-month-old female, a 2-year-old female and an adult male in his 20s.

Some residents are still taking precautions to prevent contracting the swine flu virus, but others are no longer worried.

However, with three confirmed cases, Kerry Hunt, Community Health Nursing Director for Bay County Health Department, says the swine flu may be out of the public eye but it’s not out of the public health’s eye.

“We have always expected that we would have a case in Bay County,” Hunt said. “This doesn’t shock us at all.”

Health officials say there is no reason to panic but people should remain concerned about the virus and take certain precautions to protect themselves.

“The other really important thing is that if you do have signs and symptoms of the flu, go ahead and call your provider,” Hunt said.

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The Associated Press

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—San Mateo County health officials are reporting California’s ninth death from swine flu.

The county health department said Monday that a middle-aged woman with underlying health problems had died after contracting the H1N1 flu. Health officer Scott Morrow reminded residents of the county, which has 31 of the 1,076 cases reported statewide, to avoid large gatherings of people.

California health officials had tallied 99 hospitalizations and eight deaths from swine flu as of June 18. Half of the deaths have been in the San Francisco Bay area, half in Southern California.

By IAN McCANN, The Dallas Morning News

Scrapes and bruises aren’t all that kids are getting at summer camp this year.

Swine flu is spreading through dozens of camps across the country, forcing some to shut down, delay openings or treat campers with antiviral drugs. It’s something they haven’t had to deal with previously, as seasonal flu has usually subsided by this time of year.

“It’s kind of a wake-up call to be aware of this,” said Ann Sheets, past president of the American Camp Association. “The thing that is saddest to us is, there are kids who look forward to camp for the whole year, and then they don’t get to go.”

Swine flu, now officially known as novel H1N1 influenza, appears to be here for the summer and should last until the seasonal flu season begins in the fall, said Dr. Daniel Jernigan, deputy director of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Flu cases are popping up at scouting, religious and other camps across the country, including in Texas, North Carolina, New York and Georgia.

Campers and staff at Greene Family Camp near Waco, including many from the Dallas area, are taking Tamiflu to prevent the spread of the disease after one confirmed and four suspected swine flu cases. And the Muscular Dystrophy Association has canceled its remaining 47 camps across the country, including one for North Texas children. Flu cases have occurred among participants in previous MDA camps this year.

“We were completely shocked,” said Kathy Spann, whose son Brian was to spend his sixth year with the MDA at Camp John Marc in Bosque County. “When I read the national stuff, I certainly understand it.”

Brian, 14, said he is most disappointed for his 17-year-old friends, who would have been attending their final camp.

“One friend said she was disappointed because she would have tried harder to remember things last year,” he said.

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