UK's attempts to stop swine flu called flawed

[Guest guest]

I agree, the UK is going about it all wrong.

They could be underreporting the infection and death rates as well. As I understand it, they are underreporting their murder rate as well. Over there, a murder is only counted as a murder if there is a court conviction FOR murder. In the US, any time a person is killed by another person and it wasn't an accident, it is called murder right away regardless of conviction or not. So, England's murder rate is underreported based on the number of murders that go unsolved, which could be up to 50% like it is in many places in the US, failures to get convictions and I also wonder if a conviction for a lesser charge like manslaughter would be counted as murder.

At any rate, they are being much too aggressive too soon. They are going to waste all of their resources now and then when the real sickness comes they won't have any thing left.

In a message dated 5/21/2009 2:17:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, no_reply writes:

UK's attempts to stop swine flu called flawed Huge savings on HDTVs from Dell.com!

[Guest guest]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_he_me/med_britain_swine_flu;_ylt=Athcr\

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UK's attempts to stop swine flu called flawed

By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer Cheng, Ap Medical Writer – 30 mins ago

LONDON – Flu experts are looking very closely at Britain — and some have decided

that the U.K.'s swine flu-fighting tactics are seriously off the mark and may be

hiding a much larger outbreak.

Since Britain has the most confirmed swine flu cases in Europe, how the outbreak

develops here will have a significant influence on whether the World Health

Organization decides to raise its flu alert to the highest level — a pandemic,

or global epidemic.

British authorities have relied on an aggressive strategy to try to snuff out

the virus before it spreads, blanketing suspect cases and anyone connected to

them with the antiviral medication Tamiflu.

But experts criticize the strategy for wasting valuable medicine and say there's

little point trying to contain swine flu, which is more infectious than regular

flu.

" Containment using Tamiflu is a flawed concept, " said Osterholm, a flu

expert at the University of Minnesota. " It's like trying to maintain the

integrity of your submarine with screen doors. "

Osterholm, who has advised U.S. authorities on preparing for a pandemic, said

the swine flu virus travels too fast to stop it with Tamiflu.

" You are never going to contain a flu virus with this strategy and at the end of

it all, you will have wasted time and drugs, " he said, because it takes much

more Tamiflu to prevent a case than it does to treat one.

Similar strategies were initially tried in the U.S, Canada and Japan but

authorities quickly dumped the tactic. Japanese officials had hoped to contain

their outbreak, but now say they probably can't, as confirmed cases soared from

four to more than 260 in just a week.

Authorities in Mexico never even tried to contain the virus, it was too

widespread before they realized what it was.

Swine flu has sickened more than 11,000 people in 41 countries and killed 85,

according to WHO, whose figures often trail those of individual countries.

Mexico has reported 75 swine flu deaths, the United States 10, and there has

been one death each in Canada and Costa Rica.

British health officials have confirmed 112 swine flu cases — the most in

Europe, ahead of Spain, which raised its total to 111 on Thursday. Still, that

number has raised eyebrows among experts for being suspiciously low, given swine

flu's infectiousness and its rapid spread elsewhere.

Rumors have swirled among health officials for weeks that Britain's caseload is

far higher than officials are admitting.

" It's odd that we haven't seen more cases in Britain after the initial burst of

cases, " said Pekosz, a flu expert at s Hopkins University in

Baltimore.

Osterholm called Britain's official numbers " meaningless " and said while

authorities were not hiding cases, they also weren't looking very hard for the

virus.

" The numbers in Britain are really not telling the story, " Osterholm said.

Swine flu was first detected in Britain last month. Experts say flu viruses only

need a couple of weeks to become established in a new location.

Albert Osterhaus, a virologist at Erasmus MC University in the Netherlands, said

once the virus has been circulating, it's time to abandon the containment

strategy and save Tamiflu for patients.

Experts said Britain's attempt to squash swine flu might also be masking the

true size of the outbreak. Antivirals like Tamiflu work by reducing the amount

of virus in a person's body, so people who have swine flu and are taking Tamiflu

might test negative for the virus.

" Using Tamiflu to contain a virus may nip (an outbreak) in the bud ... but you

might also pick up fewer cases, " said Osterhaus.

Still, Britain's Health Protection Agency defended its methods.

" We are still in the early phases of the swine flu outbreak, " a spokesman said,

speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official government policy. " We

believe containment is still an effective strategy but we will certainly

reconsider it if swine flu spreads. "

Pekosz said the low numbers of confirmed cases in Britain could also be due to

limited testing.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing up to 400

specimens a day, but the British health agency has refused to say how many tests

are being done daily. The U.K. is also only testing people with a history of

visiting infected countries like Mexico or the United States, or people with

links to already-established cases. That limited criteria means authorities

could be missing lots of other cases if the virus has already spread into

communities.

" There's no reason to think this virus would behave differently in Europe than

in North America, " Pekosz said. " The numbers in the U.S. and Mexico suggest that

once you have a certain number of cases, you can seed a relatively wide

outbreak. "

For its part, Spain is taking much the same tactic as Britain. Health

authorities have started announcing new swine flu cases only once a week and are

handing out antiviral drugs to both confirmed and suspected cases.

Countries outside of North America may be reluctant to admit they have a bigger

outbreak on their hands, since that could prompt WHO to declare a pandemic.

Many governments fear that announcing a pandemic would produce mass panic and

confusion, with citizens clamoring for measures — including vaccines, antiviral

medications, trade restrictions and travel bans — that could be costly or even

ineffective.

On Monday, British Health Secretary Alan urged WHO to raise its

standards for determining a pandemic.

For now, British authorities say they are still trying to contain swine flu with

Tamiflu and have no plans to change who they test.

Experts remained skeptical.

" If there really are that few cases in Europe, we should all be sending teams

there to find out what is going on, " Osterholm said.