US health authorities are hoping to contain what they say is an intensifying swine flu pandemic with a massive H1N1 vaccination campaign.

The first distribution of 600,000 vaccine doses is set for tomorrow, two weeks ahead of schedule.

According to the most recent figures, 10,082 people have been hospitalised with swine flu in the US so far, with 936 deaths from the virus, including 36 children. In India, the toll is 344.

About 1,640 new cases reported at 165 colleges across the country; Washington most affected

Swine flu has begun to spread through American universities where more than 1,600 cases of A(H1N1) infections were recorded in the first week of classes, a health group said Thursday.

Some 1,640 new cases were reported at 165 universities across the country that participate in surveillance conducted by the American College Health Association (ACHA).

There has been only one hospitalisation and no fatalities attributed to the virus among the more than two million students who attend the schools, according to ACHA.

There are more than 18 million college and university students nationwide.
But with more than 550 deaths attributed to swine flu across the United States since the virus emerged in April, and with 40 per cent of global A(H1N1) fatalities being among young adults in good health, education authorities are trying to mitigate what ACHA has described as the “significant risk” of swine flu’s spread in universities.

“There are a lot of cases and it’s actually only one week,” ACHA president James Turner said, referring to the 1,640 new infections.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw many more cases arrive on campuses and we see the outbreak accelerate,” he said.

Despite the concerns, Turner said he has spoken with several colleagues at universities across the country and that they report “a very mild disease that for the most part is not leaving students seriously ill”.

“They feel miserable for three or four days but they don’t seem to be getting complications, or pneumonia,” he said.

Many universities are taking no chances, however, and there have been several reports of sick students confining themselves to their dorm rooms and student bodies being made aware of the dangers of swine flu.

“The concern from a public health standpoint is not so much the impact of the disease on otherwise healthy students, but the impact on those who are at risk of complication students with asthma, diabetes and heart disease.”

ACHA says the state of Washington in the US northwest has the highest rate of infection at the reporting schools, with 124.3 cases per 10,000 students, followed by southern states Georgia (80.9) and Mississippi (43.2) and the central state of Kansas (31.3).

FLU BLUES

Swine flu has caused more than 550 deaths across the United States since the virus emerged in April.

With 40 per cent of global A(H1N1) fatalities being among young adults in good health, education authorities are trying to mitigate what the American College Health Association has described as the “significant risk” of swine flu’s spread in universities.

The application, Outbreaks Near Me, builds upon the mission and proven capability of HealthMap, an online resource that collects, filters, maps and disseminates information about emerging infectious diseases.

It provides a new, contextualised view of a user’s specific location – pinpointing outbreaks that have been reported near the user and offering the opportunity to search for additional outbreak information by location or disease.

Besides Outbreaks Near Me set alerts that will notify a user on their device or by e-mail when new outbreaks are nearby, or if a user enters a new area of activity.

“We hope individuals will find the new application to be a useful source of outbreak information – locally, nationally, and globally,” says HealthMap co-founder John Brownstein, assistant professor in the Children’s Hospital (Boston) Informatics Programme (CHIP).

“As people are equipped with more knowledge and awareness of infectious disease, the hope is that they will become more involved and proactive about public health.”

Users can also submit an outbreak report. This will enable individuals in cities and countries worldwide to interact with the HealthMap team and participate in the public health surveillance process.

Users may take photos – of situations and scenarios of, and/or leading to, disease – with their iPhone and submit them to the HealthMap system for review and eventual posting as an alert on the worldwide map.

“This is grassroots, participatory epidemiology,” says HealthMap co-founder Clark Freifeld, a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab and research software developer at CHIP,” according to a Children’s Hospital release.

HealthMap was founded in 2006 and mines the Internet – searching disparate data sources such as news reports, curated personal accounts, official alerts, blogs and chat rooms – to track and map infectious disease outbreaks.

Over 2,100 people worldwide have died from the influenza A (H1N1) since the virus was identified in April, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday.

All the six WHO regions have reported deaths from the pandemic, with the Americas reporting the largest death number of 1,876, the UN agency said in a latest update of the situation.

In southeast Asia, 139 deaths were recorded, followed by Europe with at least 85 deaths. Deaths in the West Pacific, Africa and East Mediterranean stand at 64, 11 and 10 respectively.

The total number of lab confirmed swine flu cases reported worldwide is 209,438, but this actually understates the real number of cases as countries are no longer required to test and report individual cases, the WHO said.

The WHO warned that the H1N1 pandemic virus “has rapidly established itself and is now the dominant influenza strain in most parts of the world.”

“The pandemic will persist in the coming months as the virus continues to move through susceptible populations,” it said in a statement.

It advised countries in the northern hemisphere to prepare for a second wave of pandemic spread.

“Countries with tropical climates, where the pandemic virus arrived later than elsewhere, also need to prepare for an increasing number of cases,” it added.

According to WHO experts, there are currently no signs that the H1N1 virus has mutated to a more virulent or lethal form.

European health officials Saturday reported 311 new swine flu cases in the region.

Of the new cases, 279 were confirmed in Italy, 26 in Switzerland, five in Slovakia and one in Slovenia, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in its latest report.

The cumulative number of confirmed cases of the influenza A (H1N1) virus, also called swine flu, in the European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries increased to 42,099, with 13,740 cases in Germany, 12,957 in Britain, 1,987 in Portugal, 1,538 in Spain and 1,473 in the Netherlands, the ECDC said.

The total number of fatal cases in Europe rose to 80, the ECDC added.

The ECDC publishes a daily situation report about the H1N1 flu cases in the EU and EFTA countries based on official information from these countries.