4907640207 (17)
Photo by Scott Bauer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
How cute those innocent pigs are...
After SARS, Avian flu and what now??? Swine flu???
Whenever you cough, people will watch at you.
Whenever you sneeze, people will stare at you.
Whenever you show any kind of any signals, they will keep their eyes on you…
How is the situation right now?
Which countries in Asia are risky?
Do we have any plans to handle with this
"SWINE FLU"?
***Blue color= My comment
***Red color= The important points
INFLUENZA A(H1N1)
Health Ministry tightens preventive measures
By Pongphon SarnsamakThe NationPublished on May 5, 2009
Immigration officials seen not wearing masks, asking tourists to remove masks for identification. Aren’t they afraid of the flu?
All Thais returning from Mexico have tested negative to the A(H1N1) virus, Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nopamornbodi announced yesterday. This is a good news…the flu haven’t arrived here yet.
Seven students and seven teachers, who had been living in Mexico since August last year, only just flew back after the outbreak was reported there. However, three students, two of them girls, were found to have cold-like symptoms.
Bamrasnaradura Institute director Dr Preecha Tantanathip said, as of 2am yesterday, one had a high fever of 38 degrees Celsius, which later dropped to 36.5 degrees, while the other tested at 31.5 degrees. The boy, who has been isolated, is suffering from a stuffed nose.
Meanwhile, the Public Health Ministry yesterday tightened measures to control the spread of the virus by installing another 32 infrared thermal scanners nationwide.
Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said he will today ask the Cabinet for funds to purchase another ten scanners after Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kajornprasart, who is overseeing the outbreak-prevention operations, instructed him to tighten measures.
He added that even though there have been no outbreaks in the Southeast Asian region, people travelling to and from neighbouring countries would be checked at the borders. Travellers will have to provide every detail of their trip and anyone arriving from Mexico would have to undergo a physical examination.
While Witthaya was waiting to welcome the teachers and students who flew in from Mexico on Sunday night at Suvarnabhumi Airport, he noticed that immigration officers were not wearing surgical masks to protect themselves, and were asking all travellers to take off their masks for identification.
"From this incident, I realised that immigration officers are not cooperating in the prevention of an outbreak," he said. "It appears as if the immigration officers don't know that they need to prevent infections." So, let say if the flu spread from this area, who is going to take the responsibility then?
He said he would instruct the Disease Control Department's director general Dr Somchai Chakrabhand to train all immigration officers, especially those at the borders, about disease control and prevention. It’s "a MUST" to do before it’s too late.
Somchai said his agency had already trained immigration officers at southern border checkpoints, including Betong, Sungai Kolok, Padang Besar, Sadao, Malang and Hat Yai, about preventive measures. However, so far only Sadao and Padang Besar have infrared thermal scanners.
Meanwhile, Witthaya has instructed medical workers across the country to be prepared for an outbreak and increase their capacity to diagnose and treat the A(H1N1) influenza. Preecha said his institute had reserved 62 beds people who might be infected with the virus.
In related news, Food and Drug Administration's secretary-general Dr Pipat Yingseri said the Mexican embassy had sent an official letter announcing that pork and pork products from Mexico were not contaminated by the A(H1N1) virus and were safe for consumption. However, he said, Thailand does not import pork and pork products from Mexico or Canada, where 200 pigs were infected by the A(H1N1) virus.
He also said that sausages imported from the US were safe for consumption.
*Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/05/national/national_30101992.php
(The Nation)
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Authorities scramble to halt swine flu in Asia
By: AFP
Published: 2/05/2009 at 10:56 AM
Health authorities across Asia were scrambling Saturday to limit the spread of swine flu after reporting two confirmed cases in one of the world's most densely populated regions.
South Korea reported Saturday that a 51-year-old woman who recently visited Mexico tested positive for swine flu, while Hong Kong's first confirmed case was a 25-year-old Mexican who arrived in the city from Mexico via Shanghai.
The Hong Kong hotel where he had briefly stayed, along with 300 guests and staff, was cordoned off by police and put under a seven-day quarantine, while other countries including India and Japan reported suspected cases.
Authorities in the southern Chinese city said Saturday they were trying to find around 50 guests who had not returned to the hotel after it was locked down, but had succeeded in finding a number of plane passengers who had travelled from Shanghai with the infected man.
Hong Kong's confirmed case, the first in Asia, sparked a regional health alert, with China immediately ordering health authorities to find and isolate the man's fellow passengers.
China "asked health authorities in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong to immediately put passengers... under quarantine and a seven-day medical observation," its health ministry said on its website.
Fears for a rapid spread of flu were heightened with China Saturday entering the second day of an annual holiday that sees tens of millions of people on the move.
Authorities in Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, said they were still looking for 11 people who had been on a flight with the Mexican after tracking down 30 other passengers, the official Xinhua news agency said.
A similar response was launched in Taiwan, where the government was trying to find seven people who had travelled on the same flight as the Mexican.
The seven were among 26 people who had travelled from Shanghai to Taiwan via Hong Kong, Health Minister Yeh Chin-chuan told reporters.
Yeh said none of the 19 people already identified had shown symptoms of swine flu.
However, "sooner or later, we may have first confirmed cases since there is no way to restrict travel," Yeh said. "What is really important is to stop any community infection outbreak."
In Japan, also in the midst of a holiday period, the foreign ministry said a four-month-old US baby was being tested for swine flu, in the country's latest suspected case.
The baby had tested positive for the type-A virus after she arrived at Tokyo's US Yokota Air Base on a military flight from the United States with her family Friday, the ministry said.
Samples from the baby were sent to the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo, and "they are now under examination to judge if they are the new flu virus," said foreign ministry official Toshiyuki Maeda.
In India, health authorities isolated two men at a hospital in New Delhi after they arrived on separate flights from abroad.
"Both of them are under observation in an isolation ward. We have done all the tests and samples have been sent to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases," said N.K. Chaturvedi, its medical superintendent.
One of India's suspected cases arrived on a flight from London overnight while the other travelled from Texas on April 19.
If confirmed they will be India's first cases of A(H1N1), the virus linked to swine flu, in a country of more than 1.1 billion people.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand the number of suspected cases there had dropped, the health ministry said, adding that there was no evidence of swine flu spreading in the country.
New Zealand had reported four confirmed cases after a school party returned from Mexico earlier this week, on a flight from Los Angeles that landed in Auckland last Saturday.
However, Radio New Zealand quoted the ministry's national coordinator for pandemic planning, Steve Brazier, as saying "no swine flu is circulating in the community at present, that we've seen."
*Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/142128/swine-flu-arrives-in-asia
(Bangkok Post)
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Even as Fears of Flu Ebb, Mexicans Feel Stigma
Associated Press
Health workers examined AeroMexico passengers Thursday on a plane that landed in Shanghai.
By MARC LACEY and ANDREW JACOBS
Published: May 4, 2009
MEXICO CITY — Medical experts are calling the new influenza virus A(H1N1), but for many Mexicans it is simply a scarlet A.
From Chile, where sports officials declined to host Mexican soccer teams, to China, where the authorities forced even healthy resident Mexicans and Mexican travelers into quarantine, Mexicans say they have been typecast as disease carriers and subjected to humiliating treatment.
In a country of more than 100 million, only several hundred cases of swine flu have been confirmed, and 20 other countries have confirmed cases. But nonstop media coverage of a feared pandemic and the belief that the sometimes fatal virus originated in Mexico — which is disputed by Mexican health experts and officials — have overwhelmed calls by global health authorities to avoid panic while preparing for a broader outbreak.
Scientists have yet to pinpoint the origin of the virus, the earliest cases of which were found in the southwestern United States and in various parts of Mexico. But according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it contains genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia, as well as avian and human genes. Some health experts say it also now appears less lethal than once feared.
The most aggressive response has come from China and Hong Kong, still gripped by memories of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS spread widely in 2003 and killed more than 700 people.
On Saturday, Chinese authorities began confining dozens of seemingly healthy Mexicans to hotels and hospitals, even escorting some from their hotels in the middle of the night for testing, Mexican consular officials said Monday.
Chinese officials said they were seeking to isolate passengers on an aircraft that had at least one infected passenger, but the Mexican government accused China of unfairly quarantining its citizens and acting without regard to accepted public health practices.
Mexican diplomats were also angered by the suspension by four Latin American nations — Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Cuba — of flights from Mexico in response to the flu outbreak.
In another dispute, sports officials in Chile turned down a request to host two Mexican soccer teams’ championship games. Health Minister José Ángel Córdova of Mexico said he had received an apology from Chile.
China’s actions posed the biggest challenge — and elicited the sharpest response. Mexico said it would fly its citizens home from China on a chartered flight on Tuesday, including 70 people being held in quarantine.
Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, lashed out on Sunday at unnamed countries that he said were "acting out of ignorance and disinformation" and taking "repressive, discriminatory measures." The foreign minister, Patricia Espinosa, urged Mexicans to stay away from China and Hong Kong, calling their actions "unjustified"
Some epidemiologists agreed with the characterization.
"Quarantine is a concept that dates back to when you could enter a country only at a few ports, and there is almost no country in the world where that is true anymore," said Dr. Andrew T. Pavia, a University of Utah professor who is chairman of the pandemic influenza task force of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Dr. Tim F. Jones, Tennessee’s state epidemiologist, said China’s actions were understandable given that nation’s experiences with SARS and avian influenza. But just as the United States will soon ease its mitigation measures like school closings, he said, he hoped that Chinese officials "would ease up, too."
The strain of swine flu circulating now does not appear to be nearly as dangerous as was initially feared, so measures to control its spread should be no more severe than those used to control the usual seasonal influenzas, Dr. Jones said. "There is no trail of dead bodies," he said.
Since Thursday, when an infected passenger from Mexico City arrived in Hong Kong, Chinese health officials have been rounding up his fellow passengers, as well as some Mexican travelers on other flights who showed no sign of illness. The man who arrived Thursday is the only confirmed case of swine flu in China.
Among those the authorities have sequestered are a number of Mexican passport holders who had not been home in months, including a consular official in Guangzhou who was briefly held and tested after he returned to China from a trip to Cambodia.
According to Mexican consular officials, those taken from their hotel rooms included some families with small children, who were initially told that they would be tested for the H1N1 virus and released, but were later informed that they would be held for a week.
Ma Zhaoxu, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the quarantine measures were justified given the fast spread of the new flu strain.
"We hope Mexico could proceed from the overall interest of joint response to the disease, fully understand the necessary measures we have taken, and handle the issue in an objective and calm manner," he said in a statement.
Mexican citizens are not the only ones being quarantined. On Sunday, a group of 29 exchange students from the University of Montreal in Canada were confined to a hotel in the northern city of Changchun, university officials said Monday.
The one infected man on the AeroMexico flight is currently hospitalized in Hong Kong. Before being hospitalized, the man briefly stayed at the Metropark Hotel there, where about 300 guests and employees have been required to remain inside for a week.
In Beijing, 10 Mexican citizens have been confined to the Guomen Hotel, which sits directly behind the city’s designated influenza pandemic hospital. On Sunday, the Mexican consul delivered food to the hotel, but he was not allowed to talk to the sequestered guests.
Amid the uncertainty of the outbreak, Mexicans are also being subjected to discrimination by other Mexicans.
Late last week, a crowd of people in the Mexican state of Guerrero stoned two cars that had license plates from Mexico City. The protesters were apparently worried by the arrival of people from the capital, where the influenza has hit hardest. Even the Mexicans themselves were still afraid of other Mexicans from the capital where the swine flu seems to spread rapidly.
Mexican officials are eager to underscore the uncertainties about the origins of the disease. Mr. Córdova, who has led Mexico’s response to the crisis, makes the point subtly, noting in his daily news briefings that the earliest cases were detected "in the United States and Mexico," always mentioning the countries in that order.
Irked that some in the United States — especially groups that favor limiting the number of Mexican immigrants — have begun calling the virus "the Mexican flu," some radio commentators in Mexico City have fired back with a label of their own for the outbreak: "California flu."
Marc Lacey reported from Mexico City and Tijuana, and Andrew Jacobs from Beijing. Gardiner Harris contributed reporting from New York, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong and Jonathan Ansfield from Beijing. Zhang Jing contributed research from Beijing.
*Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/world/asia/05china.html?_r=1&ref=global-home (www.iht.com)
NEW YORK TIMES & International Herald Tribune
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...................................................................................................My reaction
-All Thais returning from Mexico have tested negative to the A(H1N1) virus on May 4,2009.
-Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai will ask the Cabinet for funds to purchase another ten scanners after Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kajornprasart, who is overseeing the outbreak-prevention operations, instructed him to tighten measures.
-Travellers will have to provide every detail of their trip and anyone arriving from Mexico would have to undergo a physical examination.
-The Thai immigration officers were still unaware of preventing infections.
-Hong Kong had found their first confirmed case and followed by South Korea.
-Japan and India just found some suspected cases which have a high possibility to test positive for swine flu.
-China and Taiwan are extremely alert on preventinf measures in their countries.
-Medical experts are calling the new influenza virus A(H1N1), but for many Mexicans it is simply a scarlet A.
-Mexican government accused China of unfairly quarantining its citizens and acting without regard to accepted public health practices.
-According to the uncertainty of the outbreak, Mexicans are also being discriminated by other Mexicans.
-Mexican officials are eager to underscore the uncertainties about the origins of the disease.
My opinion about these three articles
According to the third article, most people might think that China should not treat Mexicans unfairly like that but please imagine if you are the leader of China what would you do? After having SARS and Avian flu I think we are all probably going to do the same thing like China.
As we know that China is such a really big country with tons of population so they have to be aware and protect themselves a lot more than other countries before it’s too late. If one Chinese man was a victim of this swine flu and then unintentionally spread it to others, then who is going to take all the responsibility? No one… and China have to deal it even harder than other countries because of the big of their country.
I didn’t mean that everything that China had done was totally right but just to explain that if we were China we would try everything to protect our own country as well as our people.
Let’s take a look at the map comparing between the 26th of April and the 4th of May. You can see how fast the swine flu spread within only nine days.
*Source: Tracking Swine Flu Cases Worldwide (www.iht.com)
If the swine flu keeps spreading like this Mexican people are really going to feel uncomfortable to live in many aspects of their life. Even the Mexicans themselves were still afraid of other Mexicans from the capital where the swine flu seems to spread rapidly. So I think people from other countries would probably think the same. They might see the Mexicans as they are carriers of the incurable swine flu. There is nothing wrong with the Mexicans but people have their rights to protect themselves, don’t they?
If we don’t solve this problem soon enough I think most of Asians are going to avoid being near with foreigners who look like Mexicans or who got a Caucasian look because it’s hard to differentiate the nationality. Then what next? The conflict between countries might happen and follows by lots of chaos. So, the best solution is to find the vaccine for this swine flu as soon as possible and also to protect yourselves by wearing masks whenever you go to public places which are full of foreigners.
Let’s take a look at Thailand. Even though the swine flu has not found yet in Thailand but we should not be careless. According to the first article, the overall actions seem to be a good start of protection in Thailand but in the case of the immigration officials it shows that we are still lack of responsibility in some parts. And as the second article shows that swine flu is coming to Asia now I think we have to be prepared and warn people in Thailand beforehand. The first confirmed case was from Hong Kong. The swine flu is coming very closer now and as the fact that Thailand has already got more than enough of things to handle now including the conflict of political views between groups of people, the effect of the world economic crisis. If the swine flu came here too, Thailand is going to have such a hard time. So, people should be aware of how to prevent this swine flu.
Your mask is extremely important right now?
Don't be shy to use!!!
Conclusion
It was a good sign that Thailand started to tighten our preventive measures because we do not know whether the swine flu will spread here or not.
As the fact shows that this swine flu firstly spread around Mexico and also many states within America, now it silently came to Asia like Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and etc.
We should continue the process of preventive measures and make it stricter especially at the airport where there are tons of foreigners.
Sources of the pictures:
www.gg-rhapsody.blogspot.com
www.devilgraphics.com
www.applepip.com
www.boingboing.net/2007/01/20/big-factory-pig-farm.html
www.cutepiggys.wordpress.com
