National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make “black boxes” mandatory for all new vehicles. [ID:nN11246251]

The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.

Unintended acceleration in the company’s Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating 47 other Toyota crash deaths over the past decade.

Source/Full Story: Reuters

Iowa has officially recorded 21 H1N1 deaths, including seven in Polk County alone. But the county’s medical examiner said he has performed autopsies on some residents who were never diagnosed with H1N1, but actually had it.

“In the autopsy, what we’re seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them,” said Dr. Gregory Schmunk.

He said the official count of seven H1N1 deaths is inaccurate, but patient rights laws prohibit him from giving specific numbers.

He said there are two reasons for the discrepancy. First, not all sick patients get tests and second, the virus is difficult to detect. Some patients may be too sick to receive the most accurate H1N1 test.

“They’re not always done and it can be hazardous to the patient if they’re in a respiratory critical situation,” Schmunk said.

He also said that some tests reveal a false negative.

Source/Full Story: KCCI
Technorati Tags: H1N1

Cases of swine flu in the UK have almost doubled this week, the Department of Health revealed today, as the outbreak imposes increasing pressure on intensive care beds.

So far 122 people have died after contracting the H1N1 virus and more than 500 are being treated in hospital, of whom 99 are in critical care – the highest figure since the disease emerged. Children appear to be vulnerable to higher rates of infection.

Emergency planners have, however, downgraded the UK’s worst case scenario, calculating this month that as many as 1,000 people could die during the pandemic infection. Far more of the victims are likely to be younger patients, unlike the normal pattern of seasonal flu, which affects the elderly most severely.

Estimates of likely casualties have come down progressively over the past few months from an initial upper assessment of 65,000 deaths, later reduced to 19,000 and now cut back again.

Source/Full Story: The Guardian
Technorati Tags: H1N1

Swine flu spreads four times faster than other viruses and 40 per cent of the fatalities are young adults in good health, the world’s top health official says.

“This virus travels at an unbelievable, almost unheard of speed,” World Health Organisation Director General Margaret Chan told France’s Le Monde daily in an interview on Saturday.

“In six weeks it travels the same distance that other viruses take six months to cover,” Chan said.

“Sixty per cent of the deaths cover those who have underlying health problems,” Chan said.

“This means that 40 per cent of the fatalities concern young adults – in good health – who die of a viral fever in five to seven days.

“This is the most worrying fact,” she said, adding that “up to 30 per cent of people in densely populated countries risked getting infected.”

More than 2,180 people around the world have died from the virus since it was uncovered in April.

Source/Full Story: smh.com.au

A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.

The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.

It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.

GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.

The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.

It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:

• More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
• 500 cases of GBS were detected.
• The vaccine may have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times.
• The vaccine was withdrawn after just ten weeks when the link with GBS became clear.
• The US Government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to those affected.

Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown.

Source/Full Story: Mail Online

Greece will vaccinate its entire population of 12 million against the H1N1 swine flu pandemic which has swept around the world in weeks, killing hundreds of people, the country’s health minister said on Friday.

The Mediterranean country, which receives about 15 million tourists every year, has confirmed more than 700 swine flu cases and no deaths, but world health experts say the true number of cases globally is far higher as only a few patients get tested.

“We decided that the entire population, all citizens and residents, without any exception, will be vaccinated against the flu,” Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said after a ministerial meeting.

Source/Full Story: HEALTH News

The office of the wife of former British prime minister Tony Blair refused to comment Thursday on UK media reports that she has swine flu.
Cherie Blair, wife of former British premier, Tony Blair is reportedly suffering from swine flu.

A spokeswoman for Cherie Blair told CNN: “This is a private matter and we will not be making a comment.”

Blair was reported to have contracted the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, on Tuesday, according to the British Press Association and various media reports.

PA reported that she has been given a course of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, and told to rest.

Tony Blair and the couple’s four children have not shown any signs of being infected, PA added.

Cherie Blair, who is a human rights lawyer, had been due to pick up an honorary degree at the Liverpool Hope University in north-west England Thursday.

With 29 deaths and a dramatic increase in the number of cases, Britain has the worst swine flu figures in Europe.

Source/Full Story::  CNN.com

Parts of Britain are in the grip of a swine flu epidemic today after the first healthy child died of the virus that is sweeping the country.

Chloe Buckley, six, died within 48 hours of complaining of a sore throat and just a day before her seventh birthday.

She was not given the anti-viral drug Tamiflu after her doctor apparently misdiagnosed her illness as tonsillitis.

It was also announced yesterday that Dr Michael Day, a 64-year-old GP who had been treating swine flu victims, had died after contracting the virus.

Both the little girl and the doctor are believed to have been perfectly healthy before succumbing to swine flu.

Three people with no previous health problems have now died of the illness out of a total of 17 deaths across Britain.

Experts have moved to reassure the public that swine flu is no more contagious than the normal seasonal flu, and for most of those who catch it, the illness will be mild.

‘The vast majority of people will recover quickly by taking paracetamol or ibuprofen, and drinking plenty of fluids,’ said Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the BMA’s GP committee.

Source/Full Story: Mail Online

In 1976 the swine flu vaccine killed more Americans than the disease did.

A swine flu vaccine will be fast-tracked for use in Britain within five days once it is developed, and 130 million doses are on order.

The Department of Health expects to have enough vaccine this year to give it to half the population. Further supplies will be available if needed. Each person will need two doses of the vaccine, unless one single jab is found to provide high rates of immunity.

The first doses specific to the H1N1 swine flu virus are set to arrive in September and could be given regulatory approval in less than a week.

The move came after the first British patient without underlying health problems died from swine flu, taking the number of swine flu-linked deaths in Britain to 15. Peter Holden, the British Medical Association’s lead negotiator on swine flu, said that GPs’ surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest winter vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years. He said that, although swine flu was not generally causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on groups that were susceptible to infection or prone to complications.

Source/Full Story: Times Online

The number of people known to have died after contracting swine flu has doubled in three days, officials said today.

Fourteen people infected with the virus are now known to have died as thousands of people seek medical help with their symptoms every day.

At least 335 people have needed hospital treatment after contracting the H1N1 flu strain with the level of infection in London already reaching epidemic levels. Of these, 43 were still said to be in a “critical condition”.

The figures mean that Britain now has the third highest number of cases of swine flu in the world after the US and Mexico, Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, said. The virus has caused hundreds of deaths worldwide.

But health officials said that the health service was “coping well” with outbreaks of illness as most cases were mild and did not require medical treatment.

Sir Liam admitted it was unknown how many people in the UK were truly suffering from the virus as many people would be treating themselves at home rather than contacting their GP.

The latest figures from the Government suggest that as many as 27,000 people in England and Wales contacted their GP complaining about “flu-like illness” in a single week, with the worst-affected areas being London and the West Midlands.

Source/Full Story: Times Online

A 19-year-old man has become the fourth person in the UK to die of swine flu and the first in London.

The teenager, from south London, who has not been identified, had serious underlying health problems, as had all those who have died in the UK so far. He tested positive for the H1N1 virus after his death at Lewisham hospital on Wednesday.

So far there have been four deaths among the nearly 7,500 lab-confirmed cases. On Thursday the health secretary Andy Burnham said projections showed that if cases continued to rise at the current rate there would be 100,000 new cases a day by the end of August.

The number of deaths will inevitably also rise, but extrapolation from the four deaths so far would not be statistically valid because the numbers are too few. A Department of Health spokesman said suggestions that there could be 40 deaths a day by the end of the summer were wrong.

Source/Full Story: The Guardian

Britain faces a projected 100,000 new swine flu cases a day by the end of August and must revamp its flu strategy, the nation’s health minister said Thursday.

Britain has officially reported 7,447 swine flu cases and three deaths, but officials acknowledge the real number of cases is far higher, since many with the virus have not been tested.

Britain is the hardest-hit nation in Europe amid the global swine flu epidemic. Many flu experts believe numbers could jump exponentially now that the virus is entrenched. Because swine flu, or H1N1, is a new virus, few people have any natural immunity, allowing the virus to spread rapidly.

“Cases are doubling every week and on this trend we could see over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August,” Health Minister Andy Burnham told the House of Commons on Thursday.

Britain has been reporting several hundred new swine flu cases daily for the last several weeks. If that surges to 100,000 cases a day by the end of August, there could be 6 million people infected by the fall, or 10 per cent of Britain’s 60 million population.

Source/Full Story: MSN News

Thirteen cases of bubonic plague have been recorded in eastern Libya, near the border with Egypt, Health Minister Mohamad Hijazi told AFP on Wednesday, stressing the situation was under control.

“Thirteen cases of the plague have been recorded in a village 30 kilometres (20 miles) away from Tobruk. Eleven people have already (been treated and) left hospital,” he said, without reporting any deaths.

Libyan media have spoken of between one and three fatalities.

Source/Full Story: Yahoo! Health

The World Health Organization said Tuesday a spike in swine flu cases in Australia may push it to finally announce the first flu pandemic in 41 years. It also expressed concern about an unusual rise in severe illness from the disease in Canada.

WHO’s flu chief Keiji Fukuda said the agency wanted to avoid “adverse effects” if it announces a global outbreak of swine flu. Fukuda said people might panic or that governments might take inappropriate actions if WHO declares a pandemic.

Some flu experts think the world already is in a pandemic and that WHO has caved in to country requests that a declaration be postponed.

“On the surface of it, I think we are in phase 6,” or a pandemic, said Margaret Chan, WHO’s director-general.

Chan said it was important to verify the reports that the virus is becoming established outside North America before declaring a pandemic. “The decision to make a phase 6 announcement is a heavy responsibility, a responsibility that I will take very seriously, and I need to be convinced that I have indisputable evidence,” she said.

Chan said she will hold a conference call with governments Wednesday in order to verify some of the reports she has received before making a formal announcement. “Once I get indisputable evidence, I will make the announcement,” she told reporters in Geneva.

WHO said the virus has infected 26,563 people in 73 countries and caused 140 deaths. Most of the cases have been in North America, but Australia also has seen a sharp increase in recent days.

In most of the 73 countries, the new H1N1 virus has triggered only mild illness. But the fact that some of the deaths have occurred in otherwise healthy adults has prompted WHO to classify the outbreak as “moderate” for the time being.

“Approximately half the people who have died from this H1N1 infection have been previously healthy people,” Fukuda said, adding that this was “one of the observations which has given us the most concern.”

Source/Full Story: Yahoo! News

The outbreak of the new H1N1 flu virus has begun to wane with the start of summer in North America, and U.S. health officials said on Thursday they are looking to lessons learned as they prepare for its return in the autumn.

There are now 11,468 probable and confirmed cases of the new H1N1 swine flu in the United States, Dr Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers and Disease Control and Prevention told reporters in a telephone briefing.

So far, 770 people, or 2.5 percent of cases, have required hospitalization. California reported another death on Thursday, for a total of 21 U.S. deaths.

“Activity seems to be declining in the nation as a whole, but there are some areas where illness is ongoing,” she said.

Schuchat said the CDC will use the current lull to take stock of the nation’s response to the new H1N1 flu and attempt to patch any gaps in the public health safety net before flu season starts this fall.

Source/Full Story: Reuters