One million Irish may get swine flu

[Posted: Wed 15/07/2009 by Joanne McCarthy - www.irishhealth.com]

One million people in Ireland could get swine flu this autumn and winter, the Department of Health has warned in a letter to doctors.

The swine flu is a new virus to which most people have little or no immunity and could therefore cause more infections than are seen with the seasonal flu, the department’s chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, warned in the letter.

Studies of previous pandemics suggest a much larger wave of infection with more illness and death in the autumn or winter of this year, the letter said.

“Most planning scenarios have focussed on a clinical attack rate of 25%, which would equate to approximately one million clinical cases in Ireland,” it said.

The letter also pointed out that it is possible that the virus could increase its virulence, possibly as a result of interaction with avian influenza virus. Furthermore, when schools return in the autumn conditions for transmission will be more favourable.

The department pointed out that the vast majority of people in Europe who have contracted the virus have been under the age of 30. Some 77% of cases were reported in children and young adults under 30, a feature which distinguishes it from seasonal flu.

In developed countries, 98 to 99% of cases have been mild, in that cases have not required admission to hospital and have made a full recovery. However, there have been some hospitalisations and deaths, albeit in relatively small numbers, among those who do not belong in ‘high risk groups’. High risk groups include people with asthma, diabetes, chronic respiratory, heart, kidney, liver, or neurological disease, immunosuppression, and severely obese people.

Pregnant women, children under the age of five and people over the age of 65 are also at increased risk.

The department stressed that in spite of containment strategies in most developed countries, the virus spread around the world faster than any previous influenza pandemics. Only six weeks elapsed between the initial cases being identified in Mexico and the declaration of a global pandemic, it said.

It is expected that an increase in cases in Ireland will take place, continuing into the autumn and winter when an acceleration in cases similar to that currently taking place in the UK is very likely. The UK’s health secretary has said that he expects 100,000 new cases to be diagnosed there every day by the autumn.

Recently, the Department of Health made the decision to stop virus containment efforts and focus instead on treatment. This means that routine laboratory testing of suspect cases will cease and clinical diagnosis of influenza-like illness will be used instead.

A vaccine to immunise against the swine flu virus is currently being developed and 7.7 million vaccinations have been ordered. It is hoped that they will arrive in the autumn.

“We face a major increase in cases of A(H1N1) infection. We cannot prevent this from happening but we can mitigate its impact. We must now focus our energy and resources on preparing to treat increasing numbers of cases and preparing for mass immunisation with the pandemic vaccine,” the letter said.

Some 144 people have been confirmed as having swine flu in Ireland.

For more on swine flu, see our feature here.

Jan  Posted: 20/07/2009 12:48

Maybe its time to stop the hand shake in the churches.

Akavas  Posted: 26/07/2009 23:06

People...seriously...wake up! We live in a world with the internet virtually in every household.  It's very difficult to mystify the masses...so how is it possible that so many people just gulp down any rubbish the main streem media spins out? The swine flu is a hype generated purely for financial gain (or worse). Just do your homework. Google the subject and read various sources and most importantly - use your head. Cui Bono? Who could possibly benefit from all this panic? Who are the companies that produce(d) the almost useless medications (Tamiflu) and what does Donald Rumsfeld to do with that? And who is behind the vaccines? One of the companies (all of which were just given immunity from any legal action should anything with the vaccines go wrong). Check out Baxter + live bird flu viruses or heparin scandal...

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