[PPRAANet] Official: First U.S. Swine Flu Death Confirmed in Texas

Wed Apr 29 09:21:40 EDT 2009

Not good news at all.........

73,

Chris Stark - K7YMI

El Paso County RACES

Cell:    1-719-649-3835

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518320,00.html

Official: First U.S. Swine Flu Death Confirmed in Texas

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

WASHINGTON - 

The first U.S. death from swine flu has been confirmed - a 23-month-old
child in Texas - amid increasing global anxiety over a health menace that
authorities around the world are struggling to contain.

The flu death was confirmed Wednesday by Dr. Richard Besser, acting director
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a cable news
interview, he gave no other details about the child.

"As a pediatrician and a parent, my heart goes out to the family," he said
about the tragic death.

But Besser said in a nationally broadcast network interview that it's too
soon to say if the death in Texas suggests the virus is spreading to more
states. Nor would he say whether officials think it will become a nationwide
problem.

Besser said on NBC's "Today" show that he didn't believe "this indicates any
change in the strain of the flu."

Besser also said that "we see with any flu virus a spectrum of disease
symptoms" and said authorities need to learn more about the threat.

The child died in Houston, Kathy Barton, a spokeswoman for the city's health
department, told KTRK-TV. It unclear where the child lived.

According to a U.S. government source, the child had recently traveled to
Mexico, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, probable swine flu is being reported in Illinois and Minnesota.

State public health officials said Wednesday that more than one case is
being sent to federal authorities for confirmation.

"Probable" means the Illinois Department of Public Health has conducted
tests on patient specimens showing swine flu is probable.

An IDPH spokeswoman Melaney Arnold says the federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention will make the final determination on whether
Illinois' cases matches the swine flu outbreak in Mexico. She says one case
is located at a North Side Chicago school.

A Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman confirms that the school is being
closed.

The CDC said Tuesday that there were 64 confirmed cases in five states. That
doesn't include Illinois.

Germany, which confirmed three cases Wednesday, is the latest country
affected.

The world has no vaccine to prevent infection but U.S. health officials aim
to have a key ingredient for one ready in early May, the big step that
vaccine manufacturers are awaiting. But even if the World Health
Organization ordered up emergency vaccine supplies - and that decision
hasn't been made yet - it would take at least two more months to produce the
initial shots needed for human safety testing.

"We're working together at 100 miles an hour to get material that will be
useful," Dr. Jesse Goodman, who oversees the Food and Drug Administration's
swine flu work, told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, health authorities are preparing for the worst. "I fully expect
we will see deaths from this infection," said Dr. Richard Besser, acting
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. is shipping to states not only enough anti-flu medication for 11
million people, but also masks, hospital supplies and flu test kits.
President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to
help build more drug stockpiles and monitor future cases, as well as help
international efforts to avoid a full-fledged pandemic.

"It's a very serious possibility, but it is still too early to say that this
is inevitable," the WHO's flu chief, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, told a telephone news
conference.

Cuba and Argentina banned flights to Mexico, where swine flu is suspected of
killing more than 150 people and sickening well over 2,000. In a bit of good
news, Mexico's health secretary, Jose Cordova, late Tuesday called the death
toll there "more or less stable."

Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities, has taken drastic steps to
curb the virus' spread, starting with shutting down schools and on Tuesday
expanding closures to gyms and swimming pools and even telling restaurants
to limit service to takeout. People who venture out tend to wear masks in
hopes of protection.

The number of confirmed swine flu cases in the United States rose to 66 in
six states, with 45 in New York, 11 in California, six in Texas, two in
Kansas and one each in Indiana and Ohio, but cities and states suspected
more. In New York, the city's health commissioner said "many hundreds" of
schoolchildren were ill at a school where some students had confirmed cases.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama said Americans should know the
government is doing all it can to control the virus.

In a press conference, he also said schools should consider closing if
spread of swine flu virus worsens.

New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Britain, Canada and now Germany and Austria
have also reported cases.

In Cairo, the Egyptian government said it will slaughter all pigs in the
country because of swine flu.

The Health Ministry said the slaughter of the country's 300,000 pigs will
begin immediately.

The ministry has stated several times that there are no cases swine flu in
the country, however neighboring Israel has reported two.

But only in Mexico so far are there confirmed deaths, and scientists remain
baffled as to why.

The WHO argues against closing borders to stem the spread, and the U.S. -
although checking arriving travelers for the ill who may need care - agrees
it's too late for that tactic.

"Sealing a border as an approach to containment is something that has been
discussed and it was our planning assumption should an outbreak of a new
strain of influenza occur overseas. We had plans for trying to swoop in and
knockout or quench an outbreak if it were occurring far from our borders.
That's not the case here," Besser told a telephone briefing of Nevada-based
health providers and reporters. "The idea of trying to limit the spread to
Mexico is not realistic or at all possible."

"Border controls do not work. Travel restrictions do not work," WHO
spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva, recalling the SARS epidemic earlier
in the decade that killed 774 people, mostly in Asia, and slowed the global
economy.

Authorities sought to keep the crisis in context: Flu deaths are common
around the world. In the U.S. alone, the CDC says about 36,000 people a year
die of flu-related causes. Still, the CDC calls the new strain a combination
of pig, bird and human viruses for which people may have limited natural
immunity.

Hence the need for a vaccine. Using samples of the flu taken from people who
fell ill in Mexico and the U.S., scientists are engineering a strain that
could trigger the immune system without causing illness. The hope is to get
that ingredient - called a "reference strain" in vaccine jargon - to
manufacturers around the second week of May, so they can begin their own
laborious production work, said CDC's Dr. Ruben Donis, who is leading that
effort.

Vaccine manufacturers are just beginning production for next winter's
regular influenza vaccine, which protects against three human flu strains.
The WHO wants them to stay with that course for now - it won't call for mass
production of a swine flu vaccine unless the outbreak worsens globally. But
sometimes new flu strains pop up briefly at the end of one flu season and go
away only to re-emerge the next fall, and at the very least there should be
a vaccine in time for next winter's flu season, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the
National Institutes of Health's infectious diseases chief, said Tuesday.

"Right now it's moving very rapidly," he said of the vaccine development.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.