Sanofi Says Swine-Flu Vaccine May Mean No Seasonal Flu Shot

By Albertina Torsoli
Last Updated: April 29, 2009 05:39 EDT

April 29 (Bloomberg) — Sanofi-Aventis SA wouldn’t be able to make shots against seasonal influenza, which kills as many as 500,000 people a year, if asked to develop a vaccine to prevent swine flu, Chief Executive Officer Chris Viehbacher said.

Swine flu, if it turns out to be less severe than its seasonal cousin, could deprive millions of people of a vaccine they need each year because drugmakers like Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline Plc don’t have the capacity to produce shots against several flus at the same time.

“That will be a very difficult choice,” Viehbacher said at a news conference today after the French drugmaker reported a 16 percent increase in first-quarter profit. “Clearly, if you make a swine flu vaccine and the pandemic doesn’t actually occur, we could end up with no seasonal flu vaccine.”

The number of worldwide cases of the virus reached by laboratory tests reached 112 today, the World Health Organization said. On April 27, the United Nations agency raised its global pandemic alert one notch to level 4, saying the disease is no longer containable. The level “does not necessarily mean that a pandemic is a foregone conclusion,” according to the agency’s guidelines. There are two higher levels on the WHO’s scale.

A pandemic could also end up sickening lots of people around the globe with something mild and causing few deaths, said Ian Barr, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Influenza in Melbourne.

‘Tricky’

“The decision to switch over is a tricky one,” said Martin Meltzer, an economist from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an interview yesterday. “If this isn’t the pandemic, you worry about the next flu season. If we have nothing because we switched to swine flu, that’s not good.”

At a time when scientists can tailor drugs to match a patient’s genetic profile and people live longer than ever, the flu, first described by Hippocrates 2,400 years ago, still has the power to make millions bed-bound for a week and kill the very young, the elderly and those weakened by chronic disease.

The virus travels in the fine spray of the coughs and sneezes of infected people. The three main seasonal flu strains — H3N2, H1N1 and type-B — cause 250,000 to 500,000 deaths a year globally, according to the WHO.

Viehbacher today said Paris-based Sanofi, one of the world’s biggest vaccine makers, has asked employees to avoid traveling to and from Mexico.

The drugmaker’s 3,000 local workers have been given face masks and transportation to the workplace to avoid exposure to the virus through public transport, Viehbacher said.

[snip]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601090&sid=a8B_tllP_hcg&refer=france

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Conn. school districts closed over swine flu

4/29/2009, 2:19 a.m. PDT
The Associated Press

(AP) – HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) Two Connecticut school districts have closed for the day amid concerns about swine flu and two probable cases elsewhere in the state have been reported.

Officials in East Haddam and in Wethersfield have canceled Wednesday classes.

In East Haddam, two students who recently returned from a family trip have become ill. The schools are closed so buildings can be cleaned and disinfected.

Wethersfield officials say an employee at Silas Deane Middle School recently traveled to Mexico and has flu-like symptoms.

State health officials have identified two probable cases of swine flu and have sent samples to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell says the cases involve adults in Stratford and Southbury who recently returned from Mexico.

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-9/1240998752288430.xml&storylist=health

WHO flu chief: Swine flu moving toward pandemic level

Associated Press

April 29, 2009, 10:48AM

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says the swine flu outbreak is moving closer to becoming a pandemic.

WHO flu chief Dr. Keiji Fukuda told reporters today that developments in the disease are moving the agency closer to raising its pandemic alert to phase 5, indicating widespread human-to-human transmission.

He said the health body was monitoring the situation but was not yet ready to move the pandemic alert level up from its current level of 4, which means it is being passed among people.

Phase 6 is the highest in the scale and is for a full-scale pandemic.

Fukuda said there was no evidence the virus was slowing down.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/6398685.html

Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu

By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF (Associated Press Writer)

From Associated Press

April 29, 2009 8:17 AM EDT

CAIRO – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said.

The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order.

“It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country’s slaughterhouses,” Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.

Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman estimated there were between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt.

full story

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/hea?guid=20090429/49f7d0c0_3ca6_15526200904291056968979

Obama on possible school closures

now on air at press conference.  (Sorry, no link – link should be available later on WH site but this is important information, so I think it should get out now).

 

President Obama:“It’s also the recommendation of our public health officials that schools with confirmed or suspected cases of H1N1 should strongly consider temporarily closing so that we can be as safe as possible. If the situation becomes more serious and we have to take more extensive steps, then parents should also think about contingencies if schools in their areas do temporarily shut down figuring out and planning what their child care situation would be. If we ended up having a school closure, a child was sick, just sending the child from the school to a daycare center is not a good solution so we would have to think through, and each parent I think would have to think through what options would be available to them in the event that this became more serious.”

More cases in UK

3 more cases confimed in UK

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090429/tuk-swine-flu-more-cases-in-uk-dba1618.html

CDC Public Service Announcements

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
April 28, 2009 6:45 PM ET

Community Planning for Swine Flu

Audio
Audio – Download MP3 file

Script
Health officials are concerned about a new influenza virus of swine origin that’s spreading from person to person. Officials are acting to combat this threat, but the outbreak might grow. So be prepared.

Store a two-week supply of food and water. Have two weeks of your regular prescription drugs at home. Keep health supplies on hand, including pain relievers and cold medicines.

For more details, visit http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

A message from HHS.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Swine Flu Preparedness

April 28, 2009 6:45 PM ET

Audio
Audio – Download MP3 file

Script
Health officials are concerned about a new influenza virus of swine origin that’s spreading from person to person. Officials are acting to combat this threat, but the outbreak could grow. Prepare now.

Check with local leaders, schools, employers, and other community groups about their plans regarding an outbreak in your community. It’s important for everyone to know what to do about swine flu.

For details, visit http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

A message from HHS.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Hygiene Habits to Help Fight Swine Flu

April 28, 2009 6:45 PM ET

Audio
Audio – Download MP3 file

Script
Health officials are concerned about a new flu virus of swine origin spreading from person to person. To help fight swine flu, cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, then throw the tissue away. Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing. Stay home if you’re sick and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

To learn more, visit http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu or call 1-800-CDC-INFO.

A message from HHS.

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/psa/

Swine flu claims first victim in US

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 11:03p.m.

US health officials say swine flu has killed a 23-month-old child in Texas, the first US death in the current outbreak and the first reported outside Mexico.

The flu death was confirmed Wednesday by Dr Richard Besser, acting director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. In an interview with CNN, he gave no other details about the child.

http://www.3news.co.nz/News/Swine-flu-claims-first-victim-in-US/tabid/209/articleID/101827/cat/41/Default.aspx#top

Companies mine Web clues for signs of pandemics

By JESSICA MINTZ (AP Technology Writer)
From Associated Press
April 29, 2009 1:19 AM EDT
SEATTLE – Weeks before the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization alerted the public to a growing number of swine flu cases, a startup based in Seattle’s suburbs already had a hunch something was up.

Veratect Inc., a 2-year-old company with fewer than 50 employees, combines computer algorithms with human analysts to monitor online and off-line sources for hints of disease outbreaks and civil unrest worldwide. It tracks thousands of “events” each month – an odd case of respiratory illness, or a run on over-the-counter medicines, for example – then ranks them for severity and posts them on a subscription-only Web portal for clients who want early warnings.

The idea fueling Veratect and similar companies is that blogs, online chat rooms, Twitter feeds and news media and government Web sites are full of data that public health agencies could use to respond faster to problems like outbreaks of swine flu.

Veratect attracted attention in recent days by publicly posting a timeline of the outbreak and publishing short reports on Twitter, where more than 4,000 people signed up to receive updates.

But skeptics question whether these companies can reliably detect meaningful signals from all the noise online or whether they are mainly good at spotting patterns in hindsight. Complicating the picture, the companies are reluctant to disclose their sources and methods.

Veratect’s chief executive, Robert Hart, says the company alerted clients to a potentially severe outbreak before the general public learned of swine flu. Veratect’s computer systems, which troll the Web for reports that seem out of the ordinary, unearthed clues, and a team of about 30 analysts, many of them multilingual holders of public health degrees, chased down the ones that seemed most alarming.

full story
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/tec?guid=20090428/49f7d0c0_3421_13345200904291390482997

US wants ingredient in swine flu vaccine by May

By LAURAN NEERGAARD (AP Medical Writer)
From Associated Press
April 28, 2009 5:08 PM EDT
WASHINGTON – U.S. scientists hope to have a key ingredient for a swine flu vaccine ready in early May, but are finding that the novel virus grows slowly in eggs – the chief way flu vaccines are made.

Even if all goes well, it still will take a few months before any shots are available for the first required safety testing, in volunteers.

“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.

Using samples of the new swine 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.

“We’re about a third of the way” to that goal, Dr. Ruben Donis of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an interview Tuesday.

The hope is to have that ingredient – called a “reference strain” in vaccine jargon – to manufacturers around the second week of May, so that they can begin their own laborious production work, Donis said.

But, “this is biology, not mathematics,” he cautioned.

To further speed the vaccine hunt, the CDC has shipped a raw sample of the new virus to one manufacturer – Gaithersburg, Md.-based MedImmune LLC, which sells the only flu vaccine given via a nasal spray instead of a shot. MedImmune thus uses a slightly different approach to creating influenza strains suitable for that spray, Donis explained.

full story

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/hea?guid=20090428/49f67f40_3ca6_1552620090428-1675624590