swine-flu (updated)

Okay, let’s try to sum up:

• A friend of mine who lives in Mexico told me that they are having problems for over a week now.
• The German media started reporting about the epidemic (pandemic?) 4 days ago.
• It is not yet clear where the mutation appeared the first time, but I’ve read several times that it is suspected to be Texas or California.
• In Mexico, ~150 people died so far (yesterday the number was ~80), ~1600 are suspected to have the flu. Schools, churches and other public places are closed down.
• There are ~40 confirmed cases in the US (in 5 different states), 6 in Canada, 2 in Scotland, 1 in Spain and a few in New Zealand. Around 20 people are currently under obversation in Spain (not yet diagnosed), and several patients are suspected to have the flu in Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and Italy.
• At Frankfurt/Main Airport, travellers from Mexico with flu symptoms are checked by doctors in the airplanes (!) and brought directly to hospitals. 2 cases so far were negative (Bielefeld, Mainz).
• The swine-flu virus A/H1N1 is a mutated virus that can not only transfer from swine to swine, but also from swine to humans, from humans to other humans and even back from humans to swine. WHO director Margaret Chan said that this flu has the potential of becoming a pandemic.
• According to officials, you can still eat pork. The virus cannot be transmitted via food (if you want to be sure, just fry it properly … the virus denaturates at 72°C).
• The drug Tamiflu seems to have a positive effect on infected patients, but it’s not a 100% cure. The WHO is working on a vaccine, but a working vaccine does not exist at the moment.

For updates, click and scroll down.

Dr Vicente Torres on BBC:

“Over the last two weeks we started seeing patients with high fever, muscle aches, sore throats and coughs. Those symptoms seemed a bit odd for us, but we didn’t diagnose them with swine flu as we didn’t know about it.
On Sunday we had our first death in the area [...] we don’t have the means to confirm whether it was as a result of swine flu [...] we lack equipment and laboratory kits. All we can do is look at the symptoms and make a clinical diagnosis. In the pharmacies, there is no Tamiflu available. They only have another medication and they don’t even have enough of that.
[...]
People here are not aware that this flu outbreak can kill people. On behalf of all the medical community in Nuevo Leon I’d like to ask for help to get the medication, so we can treat people. We need to have the means to diagnose people and, most importantly, the means to offer them treatment.”
— Dr Vicente Torres, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico

And at the end, a bit of conspiracy theory:
“3 vials of virus samples missing from Maryland US. Army facility”

Update, 29.04.2009:

• WHO director Fukuda states that there are only 26 confirmed swine-flu infections in Mexico, and so far only 7 deaths. The Mexican Government released much higher numbers in the last days.
• There is one confirmed swine-flu case in Germany (Regensburg), and 6 more suspected cases. Bavaria has medication for around 25% of the population.
• Around 9.000 German tourists are in Mexico at the moment.
• 66 confirmed cases in the US, 2 in Israel, 11 in New Zealand.
• Israel not only calls the swine-flu “Mexican Flu”, but actually did some PR work in order to officially change the name to Mexican Flu. Why? Because the term swine-flu is “not acceptable” for Jews (and Muslims), since pigs are impure animals. Oh come on now …

Update, 04.05.2009:

• 985 infections in 20 countries
• 590 infections in Mexico
• 226 infections in the US
• 85 infections in Canada
• 40 infections in Spain
• 15 infections in the UK
• 8 infections in Germany

Update, 11.05.2009:

• 4300+ infections in 29 countries
• ~55 deaths so far
• 2254 infections in the US
• 1626 infections in Mexico
• 280 infections in Canada
• 11 infections in Germany
• Jean Ziegler, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, criticised the media hype around the swine-flu. He pointed out that (only) 55 people died so far in several weeks, but that 100.000+ people die of hunger every day. Every five seconds a child younger than 10 years dies of starvation.

Update, 12.05.2009:

• A study published in the magazine Science states that there are over 23.000 infections in Mexico – that’s a factor of 10 compared to the official numbers from the Mexican government.

Update, 11.06.2009:
No news for a month, but now the virus is spreading further in Germany:

• At least 27 pupils of a Japanese school in Düsseldorf are infected with the virus, the school was closed for at least a week.
• 4 more teenagers are infected in Köln.
• A pre-school was closed in Munich due to several infections.
• Several German families coming back from the US are infected.
• The Robert-Koch-Institut estimates around 90 infections in Germany, with ~ 10 infections every new day during the last few days.

Update, 26.07.2009:

• Over 3.500 infections in Germany.