Jul 29, 2010
Expert: Pandemic definition should exclude severity
Though many are calling for the World Health Organization (WHO) to incorporate severity into its pandemic alert phases, a renowned virologist is saying no. Malik Peiris of the University of Hong Kong said there was no doubt novel H1N1 was a pandemic, well before the WHO declaration. "We really don't have good assessments of severity," he told The Hindu. "So it would completely paralyze international public health policy, I think, if severity is linked to the definition of a pandemic."
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article536775.ece
Jul 29 The Hindu story
Study shows rates of antibodies to H1N1 varied by country
A seroprevalence study of 7,962 people aged 1 to 60 years found that, from August to October 2009, people had these rates of antibodies to pandemic flu: Costa Rica (26.4%), the United States (22.5%), Switzerland (16.9%), Germany (12.6%), Belgium (10.1%), and Japan (5.9%). The authors write, "The low proportion of seropositive children in Europe and Japan suggests that little local viral transmission had occurred." They say the data show that public health steps in late 2009 were justified.
http://tinyurl.com/eurosurv072910seroprev
Jul 29 Eurosurveillance study
City's 5-phase vaccine effort helped reach thousands
Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, officials from Skokie, Ill.'s health department detail how they administered 40,000 doses using a five-phase H1N1 vaccination campaign. Highlights included school and day care clinics that reached a large number of staff and caregivers as well as children, targeting emergency medical services personnel, shifting unused vaccine from the school clinics to medical clinics, employing mass-vaccination clinics, and reaching out to the homebound.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5929a3.htm?s_cid=mm5929a3_e
Jul 30 MMWR report
