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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/ ... death.html

New Brunswick public health officials are reporting the province's first death related to a drug-resistant H1N1 strain.

A 27-year-old Quispamsis man died in hospital on Monday after nearly a month in intensive care, public health officials said. Doctors tried treating him with the anti-viral drug Tamiflu but those efforts failed.

The man was the eighth person in New Brunswick to die with the H1N1 virus.

“He was suffering from a number of underlying conditions that predisposed him to having a very severe case of the disease,” said Dr. Paul Van Buynder, the province's deputy chief medical health officer.

According to Van Buynder, the H1N1 strain the man contracted was resistant to drugs such as Tamiflu that are used to fight the virus.

Vaccine available
Van Buynder said it's unlikely the victim had received an H1N1 shot. Had he been vaccinated, the man would have been safe from the virus — even the drug-resistant strain, Van Buynder said.

Health officials said they have not found a second case linked to the most recent H1N1 flu victim.

About two-thirds of New Brunswick residents have received the H1N1 shot.

Van Buynder encouraged those who haven't been vaccinated to get a shot as possible.

Although mass vaccinations have ended, shots are still available in VON (Victorian Order of Nurses) clinics, public health clinics and from certain family doctors.

"Van Buynder said it's unlikely the victim had received an H1N1 shot. Had he been vaccinated, the man would have been safe from the virus — even the drug-resistant strain, Van Buynder said."

Hopefully the press are just spinning the health officials comments, it really dis-credits anyone in the scientific/medical community when they speak in absolutes like this.

Commentary

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12300 ... anada.html

another article about the 27-year old in New Brunswick who died; picture

http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/ ... cle/904173

Neill was also the first person in the province to have an H1N1 virus resistant to Tamiflu, the most common antiviral used to fight the infection, Van Buynder said.

Drug-resistant cases of H1N1 are rare and have only occurred several dozen times across the world, Van Buynder said. It means "the first-line medication used to treat the infection, Tamiflu, does not work because the virus has changed in such a way as to be resistant to the medication.

"(Michael Neill) was treated with alternative anti-virals because the ones used for everyone else in Canada didn't work in his case."

Van Buynder could not say why the young man had the rare form of the infection other than that the virus occasionally mutates.

"He was infected in early December and we didn't see any other cases linked to him with the same virus," Van Buynder said, adding that the public should not worry that the death signifies a new pandemic. "His passing away is not a sign that the virus is returning in a nastier form.

"He contracted his infection way back in the start of December. If we were going to see a problem we would see it then, not now. It's very difficult for the virus to circulate in New Brunswick because too many people have been vaccinated."

Two-thirds of the population of New Brunswick - or almost 500,000 people - have been vaccinated, Van Buynder said.

http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/front/article/904263

Van Buynder said health officials tried several medications to battle the virus.

"He was given Tamiflu and he was given other antivirals when it was found out he was the first person here who had the resistant strain, but in the end none of the medications that he had made a difference," he said.

He said this isn't a sign that the virus is mutating - rather that a small percentage of the pandemic infection circulating can ward off the effects of antiviral medications.

Right, agencies will say almost anything that reporters will report. H274Y is exploding across the northern hemisphere (including US and Canada)