NEW YORK (CBS) – On Tuesday Mayor Michael Bloomberg will outline New York City’s strategy to fight swine flu in schools. An estimated 800,000 city residents got swine flu last year, so the city is gearing up for the new onslaught.

Last year many city schools were closed to prevent the spread of the h1n1 — swine flu — virus. But sources told CBS 2 HD on Monday that this year the schools chancellor will be much less likely to do that. The city’s plan for the 2009-2010 flu season includes:

* Keeping schools open as much as possible

* Keeping flu patients isolated from other patients in hospital emergency rooms

* And urging people to seek other alternatives to emergency rooms to avoid over taxing the ERs

Getting the vaccine will also be important when it’s available. In order to be fully protected New Yorkers are advised to get two doses of swine flu vaccine and one seasonal flu shot.

The big question is whether the swine flu vaccine gets here before the disease breaks out.

Aug 31, 2009 6:45 pm US/Eastern

Glen Cove District Students Urged To Have No Skin-On-Skin Contact With Swine Flu Outbreak Looming

Parents Told To Provide Kids With Tissues, Hand Sanitizer, Ibuprofen

NEW YORK (CBS) – Asstudents across America prepare to head back to school, officials and parents are bracing for a spike in swine flu cases. With the possibility that nearly 2 million people will be hospitalized, and 90,000 people across the county could die, one Long Island school district is taking no chances and has set into place a new “hands-off” approach to fighting the swine flu.

Chest bumps. High fives. Hugs and handshakes. Glen Cove Middle School students Ali Slaughter and Hannah Seltzer say that’s what friends do on the first day of school. But when students in the Nassau community return to school next week, the superintendent will be urging abstinence. Everyone from the tiniest tots to the biggest high school football players will be asked to limit skin-on-skin contact in an attempt to prevent the spread of swine flu when it re-emerges this fall.

“It will [be hard] because you really like your friends and you didn’t get to see them,” Seltzer tells CBS 2.

Glen Cove high schooler Erica Cohen is on the soccer team, but says she knows even in a game that involves close physical content, she’ll have to be as careful as she can be.

“I don’t really think it’s such a big deal, if you wash your hands after — I think it’s just you really can’t avoid it,” she says.

Read more…

Original Document Here.

(http://www2a.cdc.gov/phlp/docs/Facility%20Quarantine%20Order%20novelflu%20filled%20in%204-30-09.pdf)

Or, you can download it here. 

UPDATE: There also exists a “Home Isolation Order” HERE.

According to this “Facility Quarantine Order” found at the CDC servers, the Iowa Department of Public Health has a legal mechanism in place to force quarantine upon individuals. Read it for yourself. What say you, Iowans? Login and comment!

Excerpts are below:

The Iowa Department of Public Health (Department) has determined that you have had contact with a person with Novel Influenza A H1N1. Novel Influenza A H1N1 is a disease which is spread from person to person and is associated fever (greater than 100.0 F), cough, sore throat, rhinorrhea (runny nose), nasal congestion, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Novel Influenza A H1N1 presents a risk of serious harm to public health and if it spreads in the community severe public health consequences may result.

Read more…

One Company Hopes a Marijuana Lozenge Will Garner FDA Approval – but Will It Work?

You can read their press release about it here.

By COURTNEY HUTCHISON
ABC News Medical Unit
Aug. 3, 2009

When most people think of swine flu, they probably don’t think of marijuana. But then again, most people aren’t Robert Melamede.

He and his company, Cannabis Science, hope to one day make marijuana available nationwide to kids and teens — as well as adults — in the form of a medicinal throat lozenge.

While medical marijuana has garnered a great deal of attention lately in helping patients deal with chronic pain, Melamede has another application in mind; he believes it can curb death risk from the swine flu.

The approach relies on the principle that the chemicals in marijuana known as cannabinoids have a dampening effect on the immune system. Melamede said doctors may be able to take advantage of this effect to curb the risk of death from the immune system overdrive that resulted in many of the deaths of young adults during the 1918 influenza pandemic — a scenario that some worry could occur once more if swine flu were to become more virulent.

It’s a controversial approach — and few infectious disease experts believe health officials will be quick to approve marijuana prescriptions for sick kids. Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, is one expert who is troubled by the implications of “giving out THC like water.”

“I don’t think many parents would want their kids ‘on drugs’ for a mild, flu-like illness,” he said, “and it’s sure to raise hackles with the anti-drug people.”

Still, Cannabis Science, an emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company of which Melamede is president and CEO, is working on an edible form of medicinal marijuana that its officials think will help treat many infectious diseases, swine flu included. Last month, the company announced its intention to apply to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s fast track approval process in the hope of making its anti-flu lozenge available for a possible second wave of swine flu.

Melamede said he has already tried the approach himself. In February, when he contracted a nasty flu — a bout he suspects was related to the H1N1 swine flu virus — he said he took medicinal marijuana to help his body fight it off.

Read more…

Report by CDC, Released Tuesday, Raises Concern About Washington’s Potential Response to the H1N1 Virus

ABC News

By PATRIK JONSSON
Staff writer, Christian Science Monitor
Aug. 30, 2009

What might life be like during the kind of major swine flu pandemic predicted by the White House to hit the U.S. this fall?

The worst-case scenarios percolate on the edges of thought: bans on public gatherings, restricting the movement of afflicted individuals, and compelled vaccinations. Conspiracy theorists go farther, suggesting that the World Health Organization is behind a secret plan to inoculate Americans at gunpoint with immune-system depleting vaccines to depopulate the globe.

The CDC’s report, released Monday, may well create some level of hysteria. It said 1.8 million Americans could become seriously ill this fall and as many as 90,000 could die.

In truth, America’s national pandemic response plan has been shaped by lessons from the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, which killed millions globally and did include gun-point quarantines. If the circumstances are deemed dire enough, the government’s “Pandemic Influenza Plan” allows for strong measures, such as banning public gatherings and calling in the military to help with law enforcement.

Yet the far greater concern for public-health officials right now is more mundane: trying to make sure that there is enough vaccine to meet demand – and that there are enough healthcare professionals on hand to handle a potential influx of patients.

The Department of Health and Human Services has fast-tracked production of a vaccine, but it will not have 120 million doses ready by the expected peak of the season, as it had hoped. Forty-five million doses will be available in mid-October, with 20 million more available each week afterward.

Massachusetts public-health officials, for instance, are urging nearly 90 percent of residents to get vaccinated. 

Read more…

Monday, August 31, 2009

Doctors don’t know yet if it will take one dose or two of vaccine to protect against the new swine flu. Add that to vaccine for the regular winter flu, and it could be a multishot season for a lot of people — or a multisquirt season, for those who choose the FluMist nasal-spray version.

Some possibilities:

—One shot: Older adults currently aren’t on the priority list to get swine flu vaccine but they should get the seasonal vaccine, which is available.

—Two shots: There’s a potential for the regular vaccine in one arm and the swine flu vaccine in the other, if that one requires just one dose.

—Three shots: The swine flu vaccine might require two doses three weeks apart, plus the regular vaccine.

—Four shots: There’s even this possibility for some children. Youngsters under 9 who are getting their first-ever regular flu vaccination need two doses of it.

Monday, August 31, 2009

By Marrecca Fiore

Millions of kids, young adults and teachers are returning to classrooms and dorm rooms this week – prime real estate for the spread of H1N1 – and there’s still little agreement on how best to protect against the bug.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services, World Health Organization and vaccine manufacturers have yet to reach an agreement on how to attack and prevent the H1N1 virus.

Among the most confusing points are:

— How many flu shots will you need?

How many times will you need to get poked this year? That depends on who you ask and how old you are.

One shot: The CDC and HHS recommend seasonal flu shots for everyone – especially high risk groups like the very young, very old, health-care workers and those with pre-existing health conditions or weakened immune systems.

Two shots: H1N1 shots (two of them administered about three weeks apart) are recommended for health-care workers, pregnant women, the very obese, parents of children and teens, and children and adults ages 6 months to 24 years old. People older than age 50 do not need H1N1 shots unless they have pre-existing health conditions or weakened immune systems, according to health officials.

Three shots: Certain people are encouraged to get both seasonal flu and H1N1 shots including pregnant women, health-care workers, parents of children and teens, college students and people with underlying health conditions.

Four shots: New this week, some health officials say children under the age of 9 who have never had a flu shot will need four shots. This includes two seasonal flu shots and two H1N1 shots.

— Should infected schools and colleges close?

Read more…

Reuters
Sunday, August 30, 2009 7:16 PM

 BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has contracted the H1N1 swine flu virus and is being treated by doctors while continuing to work from his residence, government spokesman Cesar Velasquez said on Sunday.

“He is working by telephone and Internet,” the spokesman told Reuters.

A popular conservative and Washington’s key ally in South America, Uribe attended a summit with other regional leaders on Friday in Argentina. He started suffering from fever, headaches and backaches after the meeting, Velasquez said.

The leaders who met with the 57-year-old Uribe at the summit have been advised of his infection, Velasquez added.

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias was the first known head of government to have caught swine flu. He recovered earlier this month from a mild case of the virus and returned to his normal routine after working from home for about a week while being treated.

Colombia has reported 621 confirmed cases of swine flu with 34 deaths, according to its social protection ministry.

The H1N1 swine flu virus spread widely after emerging in April in Mexico and the United States. The WHO declared a pandemic in June and warned that the new strain could infect hundreds of millions of people.

Sun Aug 30, 2009 6:52pm EDT

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The new H1N1 swine flu is estimated to have infected about 800,000 people in New York City in the spring, a top U.S. health official said on Sunday, citing a study due to be released later this week.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, who heads the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said surveys suggested the virus was widely spread around the city. Frieden was New York City’s health commissioner before taking the top CDC job in June.

“In New York City where we had a lot of H1N1 this last spring the estimate is about 800,000 people, about 10 percent of New York City residents, got infected with the flu,” Frieden said in an interview with C-SPAN television aired on Sunday.

“That’s a lot of people.”

New York City health department officials say the full study is being finished and will be released within days.

Read more…

By Herb Newborg
YourSpine.com

CDC States H1N1 Vaccine May Maim and Kill 30,000 Americans, FDA Requires Minimal Efficacy
CDC says to assume 1 in every 100,000 vaccine recipients will suffer serious side effects, FDA only requires vaccine be effective in 3 out of 10 recipients.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially stated that there will be as many as 30,000 serious, potentially lethal adverse reactions to the novel H1N1 vaccine, while the FDA guidelines for the novel H1N1 vaccine only require that it work in 3 out of every 10 recipients.

Last Saturday, I attended one of 10 “public engagement” meetings the CDC is holding across the country, utilizing a new model of public engagement designed to provide a public viewpoint or societal perspective on the topic at hand (mass vaccination) to the sponsor (in this case, the CDC).

Part of the process entails the sponsor (CDC) providing the following: “Information on the many sides of an issue is provided to the participants in a fair and balanced manner so that all participants become well-informed, and the overall group process is convened and managed in a neutral, respectful fashion.”

This requirement is met by providing an oral presentation in easy to understand language, a booklet summarizing the key facts needed and a discussion guide summarizing the choices faced.

The assembled group of 80 participants was shown a video, given a brief oral presentation and a printed discussion guide. We were asked to accept several assumptions in considering the topic. We were asked to assume that the severity would be similar to what had already been observed in the spring of 2009; we were told to assume that the vaccination program would be voluntary, not mandatory; we were told to assume that initial vaccine supplies will be available in October but supply would be limited through February 2010.

Read more…

Agence France-Presse
August 29, 2009 09:49pm

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.

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

“Sixty per cent of the deaths cover those who have underlying health problems,” Ms 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 2180 people around the world have died from the virus since it was uncovered in April.

Some tropical countries are already reporting strains on their healthcare systems amid surges in infections.

Ms Chan also said that it could be months before sufficient vaccine is available to combat the pandemic.

She put world production capacity at 900 million doses a year, for a global population of 6.8 billion people.

Even if this was an unprecedented effort, and authorities were speeding up procedures for getting vaccines to the market, there should be no question of compromises on their safety and effectiveness, Ms Chan said.

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: 08/29/09  12:05 am

Nearly 200 people have reported flu symptoms at Washington State University in Pullman, raising fears of a widespread swine flu outbreak.

As of Friday, seven cases of swine flu had been confirmed at the school after just one week of classes, seeming to confirm health officials’ concerns that schools reopening will lead to a resurgence of the disease.

“It’s very difficult to put hard and fast numbers on it because not everyone is being tested and apparently false negatives are quite common,” said WSU spokesman James Tinney. “What we can say is swine flu has been confirmed here. Fortunately, most of the cases appear to be fairly mild.”

Of 179 patients who had reported to the school’s clinic by Friday, 32 were tested for the type A influenza virus, which is assumed to be H1N1, or swine flu. Seven tested positive, health officials reported.

Rob Carson, The News Tribune