Rhiza Labs FluTracker Forum

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Praemonitus, Praemunitus..Forewarned is Forearmed.

Cape Town - A Johannesburg laboratory has isolated its first case of H1N1 (swine flu) for this season, but has said that it should not result in a high number of fatalities.

"It will probably not be a problem, but I know the whole world was up in arms about swine flu," Toga Laboratories operational lab manger Carlo Vos told News24.

He said that the international panic about swine flu was irrational.

"They overdid it because swine flu isn't really a problem, the normal flu, you know you get the same problems with normal flu as well. But it's the media that took it out of proportion."

According to Toga lab, the strain is identical to the previous outbreak, but Vos was concerned that it was found so early in the season.

Peak season

"The flu season actually starts in June, normally the second week in June, so this is quite an early pick-up for swine flu or for any flu for that matter. I don't think there's been any flu isolation for any flu in this country," he said.

Between 1997 and 2002, new strains of three different subtypes and five different genotypes of swine flu emerged as causes of influenza among pigs in North America. These caused the major panic related to the disease.

In SA, the peak season for flu is usually late in the year.

"That year when swine flu was so big, actually the peak amount of positives we got was in September," Vos said.

He encouraged South Africans to ensure that they were vaccinated against all strains of flu.

"Get vaccinated, the vaccine that's out now is a trivalent vaccine - one of the strains they vaccinate you against is H1N1."

Vos suggested that the flu strain had travelled from Europe and warned that people who are HIV positive should be vigilant.

"It travels all over you know. Flu season was in the northern hemisphere - some people got swine flu - now it changed over to this so somewhere, someone brought it over from overseas and infected someone.

"If you're HIV positive your immunity obviously isn't that good so it can affect you quite quickly."

http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Swin ... A-20110519

http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/ ... -1.1068844

Zuma campaigns despite flu bout

President Jacob Zuma was in high spirits last night as he jokingly blamed a visit to the DA-controlled Western Cape for a bad flu bug, which almost robbed him of his voice, and a sore knee, which made it difficult for him to keep up with the steps on his campaign trail.

But he looked exhausted as he arrived more than an hour late at the Sandton Convention Centre last night after a day of campaigning in Port Elizabeth to address about 2 000 mostly black ANC-supporting businesspeople and professionals, among which were some members of the Hispanic and Chinese communities. .....

Over 100 treated for swine flu in Gauteng
The Gauteng Health Department has urged people who develop cold and flu like symptoms over winter to see a doctor to avoid another swine flu epidemic.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases said over 200 South Africans are being treated for the virus -129 of them in Gauteng.

On Monday, a private school in Johannesburg closed its doors to pupils in grade six and below because of simultaneous outbreaks of swine flu and mumps.

Gauteng Health’s Sello Mokoena said: “We are also encouraging people to take the normal flu injections especially those that are vulnerable with chronic diseases and related health problems.”
http://saweatherobserver.blogspot.com/2 ... lu-in.html

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www.twitter.com/hniman

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Praemonitus, Praemunitus..Forewarned is Forearmed.

Hi Stephenson !!!

Google Flu Trends heading towards high now

http://www.google.org/flutrends/za/#ZA

Two H1N1 influenza patients including a two-year-old boy from Hartswater in the Northern Cape are still in a critical condition at the Kimberley Medi-Clinic.

Medi-Clinic spokesperson Denis Coetzee says the two are in the intensive care unit. Coetzee has called on the public to be cautious of the virus. The department of Health has confirmed eight cases of the H1N1 virus which has claimed two lives in the province.

"The two patients are still in the intensive care unit and their condition is still the same, they are both critical. We keeping an eye on them and according to our guideline transfer we receive from the department of Health. We have a two year old boy from Hartswater and we have a sixty seven year old man from Delportshoop," said Coetzee.

Meanwhile, the provincial health department has been running a vaccination campaign against the virus since January. The department says over 60 000 people have been vaccinated to date and those currently infected were not yet vaccinated.

Northern Cape's Programme Manager for Communicable Disease, Noreen Crisp, says not all people will be vaccinated, because the campaign is not mandatory, it is voluntarily. "Those people that are ill currently in hospital are people that have not been vaccinated," added Crisp.

http://www.sabcnews.com/portal/site/SAB ... lPath=home

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www.twitter.com/hniman

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Praemonitus, Praemunitus..Forewarned is Forearmed.