FLU PANDEMIC - 440,000 people said to have had the bug

The number of people in Thailand who have caught the new flu virus is getting close to half a million, the Public Health Ministry announced yesterday.

Dr Kamnuan Ungchusak, spokesperson for the Disease Control Department, said the ministry estimated the "real" number of people who had caught the typeA (H1N1) flu strain in the three months since the outbreak hit the country in early May was about 440,000. This was based on a ratio of about 10 deaths per 100,000 people infected with the new virus. Thailand has had 44 deaths attributed to the new flu. That meant about 440,000 people had had the virus. Kamnuan spoke at the first weekly press conference at the ministry yesterday, when it announced there had been 20 more deaths over the past week.The number of cases confirmed by laboratory tests is 6,776. At present, only 35 patients were in hospital. But seven were in a critical condition. Previously, Professor Prasert Thongcharoen, a leading virologist and chairman of the ministry's advisory committee on strategy for public health and medicine, had predicted the number of patients would jump because the virus was spreading more easily among people, especially in urban areas. Its spread through rural areas was also seen as rising, but over a period of months, not weeks. Prof Prasert said most did not have immunity against the new flu virus and the H1N1 pandemic was spreading faster among humans than the seasonal flu virus. Disease Control Department spokesperson Dr Suppamit Chunsutiwat estimated that between 6 to 30 million people would get the new flu virus with about 600 to 1,200 people likeฌly to die because most people do not have immunity. To reduce the mortality rate, Kamnuan said the ministry would try to control the spread of the virus by asking people with flulike symptoms to stay at home and avoid public places. Dr Somchai Chakrabhand, directorgeneral of the Disease Control Department, said his agency had sent 1.2 million antiviral oseltamivir tablets to rural hospitals nationwide in bid to boost the stockpile of essential medication in case of a surge in patients with severe symptoms. The department had earlier sent one million tablets of oseltamivir to rural hospitals. Dr Paijit Warachit, deputy permanent secretary of the health ministry, said medical schools nationwide had been asked to boost the number of higherlevel graduates available to treat patients. He said this measure would be effective in four weeks. Meanwhile, Chulalongkorn University virologist Dr Yong Pooworawan said he has studied the genetic code of the new A(H1N1) flu strain, collected from patients over the past three months. He found there were only slight changes in two proteins on the surface of the virus: hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). This meant the virus was not mutating yet. Thailand may use a lot of oseltamivir to treat patients with new flu virus, but he said the lab results showed the virus was not showing resistance to the antiviral drug.

Source: The Nation