NUTTAPORN BAIKHLOI

REACTION

2009-05-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

From this crisis, world is alerted with the unexpected situation, the government from each countries are preparing to prevent the flu example in Thailand, thermo scans were set at the immigration rows in order to prevent the flu from arrival’s visitors and quarantine them for infection reason and Ministry of Public Health distribute a hundred thousands of face masks to taxi drivers and bus drivers. Consumers are more careful to their consumption – choose more so that traders also concern more about hygiene of everything. World Health Organization is in urgent research to make vaccines of H1N1 and hope that will reduce the number of deaths as soon as possible.

CONCLUSION

2009-05-07T08:33:00.000-07:00

From this crisis, the economic all around the world are falling again especially in America which faced with Hamburger crisis in the first period. The misunderstanding of consumers who thought that they could be infected with H1N1 from pig so they stopped consume product from pig which means many of business are getting balky and affect to business of other countries like dominos.

Some cases might lead into a national corporation example is Mexico government excoriated China about unfair and discriminated to their citizens even they threat them very well in five-star hotels and first-class meals. On the other hand, China government denied that it was discriminated for Mexicans and it’s a procedure to prevent their citizens from Swine flu and hoped Mexican government to be objective and calm.

People around the world are being afraid and panic after the number of infected people is increasing but WHO’s said that nothing to worry and we were announcing to other countries about how to prevent it already. According to Margaret Chan, the head of the organization told the Guardian on May 4, 2009 that ‘ It is important to make this clear because when we announce level six it will cause unnecessary panic’ but doesn’t show us about how or what to do if the situation is worst’.

The investigators have been going to Mexico to investigate the origin of H1N1 and do know the origin of H1N1 now but they still can’t exactly find the vaccine for treatment.

American, Already Ailing, Dies of Swine Flu

2009-05-07T08:21:00.000-07:00

By ELISABETH MALKIN and SHARON OTTERMAN
Publish: May 5, 2009
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/health/06flu.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=swine%20flu&st=cse

NY TIMES - The first American has died after contracting the swine flu virus, Texas health officials said Tuesday. Officials did not identify the 33-year-old Texas woman but added that she suffered from an unnamed pre-existing medical condition.

The health of the woman, a schoolteacher who lived in Harlingen, near the border with Mexico, was worsened by the H1N1 flu virus, said Leonel Lopez, the Cameron County Department of Health and Human Services epidemiologist. Mr. Lopez said that the woman had recently given birth, and added that the baby was in good health.

“I don’t want people to panic,” Mr. Lopez said. “Her death was a combination of a pre-existing health condition and the flu. The flu just made things worse.” (I think that's type of anxiety)

The woman had been hospitalized with complications from the flu since April 14, and died earlier this week, said Doug McBride, a spokesman for the state health department. He said that other members of her family had undergone testing and none were known to have contracted the flu.

The woman’s death came roughly a week after the first known swine-flu fatality in the United States, a Mexican toddler who died in a Houston hospital on April 27. Earlier on Tuesday, federal health officials said they expected that more cases of the disease, including some deaths, would come to light.

But while the virus, officially called influenza A(H1N1), has continued to spread across the United States and around the world, (World Health Organization; WHO’s was announcing of LEVEL 5) it is far less deadly than initially feared. In Mexico, where the outbreak apparently had its origins, new cases have begun to ebb, and President Felipe Calderón lowered the national alert level on Monday.

Still, Mexico called off Cinco de Mayo celebrations on Tuesday, including the biggest — a re-enactment of the May 5, 1862, victory over French troops in the central state of Puebla. The number of confirmed cases in Mexico now stands at 942 and 29 deaths, according to the Mexican authorities.

The authorities have been seeking to strike a balance between the health risk of widespread shutdowns and the economic cost of keeping parts of the economy shuttered. In Mexico, the nationwide impact on industries, including tourism, has cost about $2.3 billion, or between 0.3 percent and 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said Tuesday.

“We know that there could be a light or small increase in the number of cases, but we are also conscious of the importance of reactivating the economy and the return to normality of ordinary life for all Mexicans,” Health Minister José Ángel Córdova said Monday afternoon.

Instead of closing schools, he said, officials said parents should keep children showing any symptoms home, and teachers will keep a close eye on the health of students. But bars, nightclubs, cinemas and theaters, however, will remain closed until further notice.

Worldwide, health authorities are taking a variety of measures to try to limit the outbreak, as confirmed cases continue to rise.

In Geneva on Tuesday, the World Health Organization said 1,490 cases had been confirmed in 21 countries, compared with 1,085 cases in the same number of countries a day earlier. The only confirmed deaths have been in Mexico and the United States, which is now reporting 403 confirmed cases in 38 states. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they believed the disease was not nearly as lethal or severe as they had initially thought it could be, and they recommended on Tuesday that schools with confirmed cases no longer shut their doors.

“Closing schools is not effective” in halting the spread of the virus, said Dr. Richard E. Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Swine flu origins mysterious in 'genetic arms race

2009-05-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/06/swine.flu.origins/index.html

May 6, 2009 -- Updated 1319 GMT (2119 HKT)
By Elizabeth Landau

(CNN) -- While investigators trudge through pig farms and remote villages in Mexico, searching for clues about the new swine flu, answers about the virus' origin may finally appear on a computer, based on genetic codes.

A researcher investigates swine flu at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.

At the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University, researchers are using public databases to trace the origins of the 2009 H1N1 virus. They've found that the closest relatives to the new virus are viruses that were isolated from pigs in the United States in the past few years.

Their analysis, recently published in Eurosurveillance, suggests that the virus has at least two swine ancestors, one of them related to a virus isolated in North America in 1998.

Still, the relatives are distant, and it's premature to conclude that the virus came from the United States based on this analysis, said Raul Rabadan, study co-author and assistant professor at Columbia. (According to Wikipedia, Raul Rabadan is a Spanish theoretical physicist and biologist working at Columbia University in New York City, NY. He is currently studying computational biology, systems biology, and the AIDS and influenza viruses. He is currently focusing on theoretical biology and the genetics of viruses, in particular influenza viruses including influenza A virus subtype H1N1.)

Influenza is like a small jigsaw puzzle with eight pieces, each with its own function, Rabadan said. The puzzle changes all the time, which is why exposure does not lead to total immunity and vaccines need to be updated yearly.

When two viruses infect the same cell, they can create yet other viruses with pieces of each of the original strains. This process is called reassortment. The 2009 H1N1 virus is a reassortment of swine, human and avian genes.

Rabadan and colleagues are finding the closest ancestors for each of the parts of the virus and then trying to understand how these parts may have combined in the past, a complicated question.

Mexican citizens to return from China

2009-05-07T07:59:00.000-07:00

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/05/swine.flu.mexico/index.html

May 5, 2009 -- Updated 0706 GMT (1506 HKT)

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The Mexican and Chinese governments sent chartered flights to each other's countries on Tuesday to pick up their respective nationals stranded or quarantined because of the global swine flu outbreak.

By Tuesday, the number of confirmed cases stood at 1,085 in 21 countries, according to the World Health Organization. Twenty-five people have died of the virus in Mexico; one died in the United States.

An Aeromexico flight was making several stops throughout China to collect nearly 70 citizens who were being held in quarantine across the communist nation as part of its strict swine flu-control measures.The flight will make stops in Beijing, Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou.

Meanwhile, a U.S. Embassy official said four Americans are or was quarantined in China: two in Beijing; two in the southern Guangdong province.

The official could not say whether the two in Guangdong had been released, nor did she provide additional details.

China suspended all flights into and out of Mexico -- the epicenter of the flu outbreak -- after a 25-year-old Mexican man who arrived in Shanghai from Mexico City on Thursday became the country's first confirmed case of the virus, scientifically known as Influenza A (H1N1).

Sixty-eight passengers and crew members on the flight with the infected man were quarantined in various parts of China.

As a result of the flight suspensions, 200 Chinese citizens were stranded in Mexico City and Tijuana. A China Southern Airlines flight was expected to fetch them Tuesday, state media said.

Mexican officials have bitterly criticized China for putting Mexican citizens in isolation. They said Mexicans were being singled out because of their passports, despite showing no signs of the virus.

China has denied discriminating against Mexicans, saying it is exercising proper precaution to prevent the spread of the virus. (But none of them had shown any symptoms in the day of departure from China and Mexican government has issues a strongly-worded statements condemned the action of China was unfair and discriminated)

Mexico City officials -- citing improvement in the battle against the virus -- announced plans to reopen government offices and restaurants Wednesday, and museums, libraries and churches the following day.

Federal officials lowered the nation's health alert level Monday from red, or "high," to orange, or "elevated," and said university and secondary students can return to class Thursday while younger students will wait until May 11.

"The measures we have taken, and above all the public's reaction, have led to an improvement," Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said at a news conference.

"But I insist that the virus is still present, that we need to remain on alert and the resumption of activities will be little by little, not all at once."

Other public venues in the city such as bars, nightclubs, theaters and sports stadiums will remain closed indefinitely. All schools in the nation also will remain closed until further notice.

There have been 590 confirmed cases, including 25 deaths in Mexico -- the epicenter of the outbreak, according to the World Health Organization. (Update on MAY 5, 2009; 19.57)

Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova Villalobos said another death and an additional 701 cases have been confirmed at the local level.

NUt

2009-04-26T22:15:00.001-07:00

NUTTAPORN BAIKHLOI

ID: 4907641163 (NO.103)

Faculty of Journalism and Mass Media Study