2009 swine flu pandemic in Australia | |
---|---|
Disease | H1N1 Influenza (Human Swine Influenza) |
Virus strain | H1N1 |
First outbreak | Thought to be Central Mexico |
Arrival date | 27 April 2009 |
Confirmed cases | 37,537 [1] |
Suspected cases‡ | n/a |
Deaths | 191 [1] |
‡Suspected cases have not been confirmed by laboratory tests as being due to this strain, although some other strains may have been ruled out. |
Sub-division | Cases | Deaths | |
---|---|---|---|
Laboratory confirmed | Suspected‡ | ||
Totals | 37,537 [1] | n/a | 191 [1] |
Australian Capital Territory | 939 [2] | n/a | n/a |
New South Wales | 5,078 [3] | n/a | n/a |
Northern Territory | 1,456 [4] | n/a | n/a |
Queensland | 11,528 [5] | n/a | n/a |
South Australia | 8,944 [6] | n/a | n/a |
Tasmania | 3,204 | n/a | n/a |
Victoria | 3,058 [7] | n/a | n/a |
Western Australia | 4,499 [8] | n/a | n/a |
Australia had 37,537 confirmed cases of H1N1 Influenza 2009 (Human Swine Influenza) and 191 deaths reported by Department of Health [1] but only 77 deaths reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. [9] The actual numbers are much larger, as only serious cases warranted being tested and treated at the time. Suspected cases have not been reported by the Department of Health and Ageing since 18 May 2009 because they were changing too quickly to report. [10] Sources say that as many as 1600 Australians may have actually died as a result of this virus. [11] [12] On 23rd of May 2009 the federal government classified the outbreak as CONTAIN phase [13] except in Victoria where it was escalated to the SUSTAIN phase on 3rd of June 2009. [14] This gave government authorities permission to close schools in order to slow the spread of the disease. [13] On 17 June 2009 the Department of Health and Ageing introduced a new phase called PROTECT. This modified the response to focus on people with high risk of complications from the disease. Testing at airports was discontinued. The national stockpile of antiviral drugs were no longer made available to people with the flu unless there were more than mild symptoms or a high risk of dying. [15]
There are on average 2,500–3,000 deaths every year as a result of seasonal influenza in Australia. An estimated 1 billion are infected seasonally throughout the world. By 18 December 2009 in Australia, 37,537 swine flu tests yielded positive results and the confirmed death toll of people infected with swine flu was 191. [1]
The first case of swine flu in Australia was reported on 9 May 2009 in a 33-year-old woman from Queensland when she touched down from a flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane. Although it was confirmed to be not infectious (coming out as a "weak but positive result"), family members and people who were sitting close to her during the flight were contacted and urged to seek immediate medical attention if they began to show flu-like symptoms. [16] On 24 May Queensland confirmed its second case. [17] 41 deaths were recorded in Queensland. The first person to die in Queensland was a 38-year-old woman on 15 July at the Mater Hospital Pimlico. [18]
In Victoria 2,440 cases were reported, [7] including 24 deaths. An 11-year-old boy, and later his 2 brothers, were confirmed on 20 May to carry the virus. [19] Victorian health authorities closed Clifton Hill Primary School for two days on 21 May, initially, after the three brothers returned to the school from a trip to Disneyland. [20] Another case delayed the reopening of the school until Thursday 28 May 2009. [21] [22] On 23 May about 22 year-nine students of Mill Park Secondary College were given anti-viral Tamiflu after one of their classmates was diagnosed with swine flu. The same situation happened for students in year nine at the University High School in Parkville and also for the Melton campus of Mowbray College after a year 10 student contracted the virus . [21] A 35-year-old man from Colac died on 20 June 2009 at Maroondah Hospital after going to Colac Hospital the previous day. [23] On 23 June 2009, the second swine flu related death in Victoria was reported, that of a 50-year-old woman at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. [24] A third death was reported on 25 June. [25] Two more deaths were reported on the weekend of 27 and 28 June. [26] Two more deaths were reported on 1 July, which included a 3-year-old. [27] Four more deaths were recorded on 8 July. [28]
In New South Wales 51 deaths were recorded. The first confirmed death in New South Wales occurred on 29 June [29] and a second man died on 3 July. [30]
South Australia recorded 28 deaths, plus a 'clinical positive' where the test was inconclusive and, after swine-flu-like symptoms were reported, Tamiflu was administered, thus making a future positive confirmation unlikely. [31] Adelaide high schools Eynesbury Senior College and Blackfriars Priory School closed for a week. [32] The first confirmed death from swine flu in South Australia was a 26-year-old Aboriginal man from Kiwirrkurra Community in the Western Desert of Western Australia who died in Royal Adelaide Hospital on 19 June. [33]
The Australian Capital Territory recorded 2 deaths and confirmed 920 cases by 28 August 2009. [2] Two of the earliest casualties contracted the disease while on the Pacific Dawn cruise ship. [34] The first death in the ACT occurred on 28 July 2009. [35]
There were 27 confirmed deaths in Western Australia. On 26 June 2009, a 26-year-old woman was the first person to die in the state. A 26-year-old Western Australian man died in Adelaide on 19 June. [33]
Tasmania recorded seven deaths. [36] The first person to die in Tasmania was an 85-year-old woman who died in Royal Hobart Hospital on 5 July. [37]
The Northern Territory confirmed the first infection of a person on 30 May 2009. [38] By this time, six people in the territory had died. The first person in the Territory to die from the epidemic was a man in his early 50s who died at the Royal Darwin Hospital on 6 July. [33]
The swine flu also affected some Australians internationally:
In 2008, the Australian government prepared for a possible flu pandemic by creating the Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza (AHMPPI). When the outbreak hit its peak in 2009, this plan went into action. [42] The plan followed six steps:
The Australian Government had a stockpile of 40 million surgical grade face masks. However, stocks of face masks in pharmacies were depleted due to personal purchases. [46] The World Health Organization Influenza Centre in North Melbourne was attempting to develop a vaccine for swine flu by growing the live virus as found in California, in chicken embryos. [47] The first one-litre batch of vaccine was announced to be ready on 29 June 2009 by the University of Queensland, but would not be available for use until it was registered as safe with the regulatory authority. [48]
A Commonwealth Health hotline for Swine Influenza was set up on Australian phone number 1802007 by the Department of Health and Ageing. [49] The Australian Government set up a health emergency web site. [50] Daily tallies of suspected cases were given. [51]
The Tasmanian Government set up a Tasmanian Action Plan for Human Influenza Pandemic. [52]
The Queensland Government had an action plan prepared in 2008 [53] and a business continuity plan in 2006. [54] The Australian Capital Territory Chief Medical Officer, Dr Charles Guest, claimed that procedures and systems were very good to detect and respond to the disease outbreak. [55] South Australia nominated eight hospitals to handle the flu: Royal Adelaide, Flinders Medical Centre or Women's and Children's Hospital, Berri, Mount Gambier, Port Lincoln, Whyalla or Port Augusta. [56] The Victorian Government Department of Human Services had a nurse on call to answer questions on the topic. [57]
CSL Limited started to produce a vaccine to immunize against swine flu. The Australian Government ordered ten million doses of the new vaccine. [58] [59]
In Melbourne, seven special clinics for influenza opened on 29 May. [60]
Per recommendations by the World Health Organization, Australia decided against closing their borders during the DELAY phase of the outbreak. There were also no restrictions of travel to and from countries where outbreaks were occurring. [61] However, starting on 30 April, thermal imaging was applied to passenger arrivals at international airports and arriving passengers were required to fill in a card. Customs officers checked aeroplane cabins prior to disembarkation of passengers to look for people with flu symptoms. [46]
The Australian Government created a nationwide campaign project that encouraged Australians to take up healthy practices such as adequate hand washing, avoiding people who were more susceptible to death from the flu, and getting the vaccine that was available. This was done in media, print, and radio forms so that it could reach the most people as possible. Another main focus of the Australian campaign was to dispel myths about the flu in order to provide citizens with the most factual information available at the time. [62]
At the peak of the outbreak, Australia had a stockpile of 8.7 million doses of Tamiflu and Relenza to combat the virus. [63]
In a 2011 article in the Emerging Health Threats Journal, Peter Collignon commented that the media frequently compared the outbreaks to the 1918 flu pandemic that infected 500 million people and killed tens of millions. Widespread public fear of a similar number of deaths led to "Emergency Departments and doctor surgeries being overwhelmed" with requests for antiviral drugs, jeopardising the supply for the highest risk patients. [64]
Swine influenza is an infection caused by any of several types of swine influenza viruses. Swine influenza virus (SIV) or swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) refers to any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. As of 2009, identified SIV strains include influenza C and the subtypes of influenza A known as H1N1, H1N2, H2N1, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3.
Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 (A/H1N1) is a subtype of influenza A virus (IAV). Some human-adapted strains of H1N1 are endemic in humans and are one cause of seasonal influenza (flu). Other strains of H1N1 are endemic in pigs and in birds. Subtypes of IAV are defined by the combination of the antigenic H and N proteins in the viral envelope; for example, "H1N1" designates an IAV subtype that has a type-1 hemagglutinin (H) protein and a type-1 neuraminidase (N) protein.
An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads across a large region and infects a large proportion of the population. There have been six major influenza epidemics in the last 140 years, with the 1918 flu pandemic being the most severe; this is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 50–100 million people. The 2009 swine flu pandemic resulted in under 300,000 deaths and is considered relatively mild. These pandemics occur irregularly.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic, caused by the H1N1/swine flu/influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, was the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus. The first identified human case was in La Gloria, Mexico, a rural town in Veracruz. The virus appeared to be a new strain of H1N1 that resulted from a previous triple reassortment of bird, swine, and human flu viruses which further combined with a Eurasian pig flu virus, leading to the term "swine flu".
The 2009 flu pandemic in the United States was caused by a novel strain of the Influenza A/H1N1 virus, commonly referred to as "swine flu", that was first detected on 15 April 2009. While the 2009 H1N1 virus strain was commonly referred to as "swine flu", there is no evidence that it is endemic to pigs or of transmission from pigs to people; instead, the virus spreads from person to person. On April 25, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency, followed concurringly by the Obama administration on April 26.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic in Canada was part of an epidemic in 2009 of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 causing what has been commonly called swine flu. In Canada, roughly 10% of the populace has been infected with the virus, with 428 confirmed deaths ; non-fatal individual cases are for the most part no longer being recorded. About 40% of Canadians have been immunized against H1N1 since a national vaccination campaign began in October 2009, with Canada among the countries in the world leading in the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated. The widespread effect of H1N1 in Canada raised concerns during the months leading to the XXI Olympic Winter Games, which took place in Vancouver in February 2010.
This article covers the chronology of the 2009 novel influenza A (H1N1) pandemic. Flag icons denote the first announcements of confirmed cases by the respective nation-states, their first deaths, and relevant sessions and announcements of the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union , and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
The 2009 swine flu pandemic was a global outbreak of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1, first identified in April 2009, termed Pandemic H1N1/09 virus by the World Health Organization (WHO) and colloquially called swine flu. The outbreak was first observed in Mexico, and quickly spread globally. On 11 June 2009, the WHO declared the outbreak to be a pandemic. The overwhelming majority of patients experienced mild symptoms, but some persons were in higher risk groups, such as those with asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, who were pregnant or had a weakened immune system. In the rare severe cases, around 3–5 days after symptoms manifest, the sufferer's condition declines quickly, often to the point of respiratory failure.
This article deals with the status and efforts regarding the 2009 swine flu pandemic by country and continent/region.
The pandemic H1N1/09 virus is a swine origin influenza A virus subtype H1N1 strain that was responsible for the 2009 swine flu pandemic. This strain is often called swine flu by the public media due to the prevailing belief that it originated in pigs. The virus is believed to have originated around September 2008 in central Mexico.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic was confirmed to have spread to the Philippines on May 21, 2009. In the following days, several local cases were reported to be caused by contact with two infected Taiwanese women who attended a wedding ceremony in Zambales.
The 2009 flu pandemic in Asia, part of an epidemic in 2009 of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 causing what has been commonly called swine flu, afflicted at least 394,133 people in Asia with 2,137 confirmed deaths: there were 1,035 deaths confirmed in India, 737 deaths in China, 415 deaths in Turkey, 192 deaths in Thailand, and 170 deaths in South Korea. Among the Asian countries, South Korea had the most confirmed cases, followed by China, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
The 2009 flu pandemic in Oceania, part of an epidemic in 2009 of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 causing what has been commonly called swine flu, has afflicted at over 22,000 people in Oceania, with 56 confirmed deaths. Almost all of the cases in Oceania have been in Australia, where the majority of cases have resulted from internal community spread of the virus. In addition, the government of New Zealand, where most of the remainder of cases in Oceania have occurred, is on high alert for any people travelling into the country with flu-like symptoms.
The 2009 flu pandemic in Europe was part of a pandemic involving a new strain of influenza, subtype H1N1. H1N1 is commonly called swine flu. The pandemic infected at least 125,550 people in Europe. There were 458 confirmed deaths in Turkey, 438 confirmed deaths in Russia, and 457 confirmed deaths in the United Kingdom.
The 2009 flu pandemic hit Africa two months later than other continents with the first case reported in Egypt on June 2, 2009. As of December 1, 30 countries in Africa had reported cases and 7 countries in Africa had reported a total of 108 deaths. It was the least affected continent.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic vaccines were influenza vaccines developed to protect against the pandemic H1N1/09 virus. These vaccines either contained inactivated (killed) influenza virus, or weakened live virus that could not cause influenza. The killed virus was injected, while the live virus was given as a nasal spray. Both these types of vaccine were produced by growing the virus in chicken eggs. Around three billion doses were produced, with delivery in November 2009.
The United States experienced the beginnings of a pandemic of a novel strain of the influenza A/H1N1 virus, commonly referred to as "swine flu", in the spring of 2009. The earliest reported cases in the US began appearing in late March 2009 in California, then spreading to infect people in Texas, New York, and other states by mid-April. Early cases were associated with recent travel to Mexico; many were students who had traveled to Mexico for Spring Break. This spread continued across the country's population and by the end of May there were approximately 0 confirmed cases throughout all 50 states.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic in New Zealand was caused by a novel strain of the A/H1N1 influenza virus. A total of 3,175 cases and 69 deaths were recorded, although a seroprevalence study estimated that around 800,000 individuals may have been infected during the initial wave of the pandemic.
The 2009 swine flu pandemic in India was the outbreak of swine flu in various parts of India. Soon after the outbreak of H1N1 virus in the United States and Mexico in March, the Government of India started screening people coming from the affected countries at airports for swine flu symptoms. The first case of the flu in India was found on the Hyderabad airport on 13 May, when a man traveling from US to India was found H1N1 positive. Subsequently, more confirmed cases were reported and as the rate of transmission of the flu increased in the beginning of August, with the first death due to swine flu in India in Pune, panic began to spread. As of 24 May 2010, 10193 cases of swine flu have been confirmed with 1035 deaths.
The 2009 flu pandemic was a global outbreak of a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1, first identified in April 2009, termed Pandemic H1N1/09 virus by the World Health Organization (WHO) and colloquially called swine flu. The outbreak was first observed in Mexico, and quickly spread globally. On 11 June 2009, WHO declared the outbreak to be a pandemic. The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms", but some persons are in higher risk groups, such as those with asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, or who are pregnant or have a weakened immune system. In the rare severe cases, around 3–5 days after symptoms manifest, the person's condition declines quickly, often to the point respiratory failure.