Swine Flu - How many in Ireland are affected?

Fear

Just wondering if anyone has any idea of how many do actually have the Swine Flu/ A(H1N1) virus. According the the HSE's website:

"Update as of July 15 2009 5pm - 146 cases in Ireland, 12 in-country transmissions"

But how accurate is that? Are GP's compelled to report all cases to the HSE and how accurate is the diagonsis that people are getting? Are blood tests carried out on all suspect cases. And is there any idea on the geographical spead of the infections?

Also is there any offical plan to deal with the fallout of a possibility of 1million people
A) being ill
the provision of essential services

RobFowl

146 confirmed cases and more pending
All suspected cases are confirmed with nasal and throat swabs (more accurate than blood tests)
There is actually a well formed plan for mass vaccinations when it becomes available and for treatment with antivirals.
Be reasssured most people who get swine flu will get a relative mild and self limiting illness.

tallaght01

I think ICUs will be VERY stretched this winter if the vaccine isn't ready in time. Sydney are already running out of beds in ICU, and are cancelling a lot of elective surgery. It's not even peaked yet over here either!

Fear

Any idea on the geographical spread?

Also am I alone in thinking that the number seems Very low per head of capita, in comparison to the UK according to the NHS:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/04April/Pages/Swineflulatest.aspx

"As of July 09, there were 335 people with swine flu in hospital in England, 43 of whom were in critical care" "There have been 17 UK deaths related to the virus, mostly in people with existing health conditions."

The Irish figure is confirmed cases, but the figure the NHS are concentrating on are those in hospital in England, so this figure will excluded Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

More worrying is this announcement by Health Secretary Andy Burnham :

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Swineflu/DG_177831

"The UK has moved from the 'containment' to the 'treatment' phase of swine flu as the number of people catching swine flu continues to rise.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham said that cases are doubling every week and if it continues at this rate there could be over 100,000 cases per day by the end of August."

Also from an Irish prospective:

1m in Ireland may get swine flu

The Department of Health has warned that up to 1m people could become infected with swine flu in Ireland over the autumn and winter.

The department's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, has sent a letter to GPs and other medical professionals warning them that up to 25% of the population could catch the influenza A (H1N1) swine flu virus.

Dr Holohan said this would put significant strain on family doctors, hospitals and intensive care facilities.

AdvertisementThe letter was co-signed by the National Director of Population Health, Dr Patrick Doorley.

So far 144 people in Ireland have contracted swine flu.

Elsewhere, the World Health Organisation is now warning that the virus is unstoppable.

WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan has also indicated the availability of a vaccine may be further away than had been anticipated.

Information from clinical trials will not be available for another two to three months and experts said a vaccine may not be generally available until October.
Story from RTÉ News:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0715/swineflu.html

Dr Galen

I would tend to agree with you RobFowl. Does anyone else think it might have somthing to do with the cost of attending a GP in this country, whereas in the UK GP services are free? Is there a population out there, that just thinks ah feck it, it's the flu. Does up on Boots type remedies and sit it out

Fear

Yes I have no doubt that there is a medical plan for giving the actual jabs, if/when they become available.

However is ther a plan do deal with the loss of public services, for instance, if 50% of the Guards were infected, is there a adequate "worst case" plan to go on, similarly for instance prison officers. Not to mention how will the health services cope?

I presume that all the state agencies have plans, but does anyone know any of the details, the when, what, who, why and whens?

Fear

Swine flu death toll in UK rises to 29

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0717/breaking6.htm

Fri, Jul 17, 2009
Grim estimates of thousands of deaths were made as the Government confirmed 29 people in the UK have already died after contracting swine flu.

Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, said figures being used by the NHS to plan its services show that a 30 per cent infection rate among the population could possibly lead to 65,000 deaths.
However, estimates vary depending on the numbers who end up infected.
The Republic's chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan said 146 cases of swine flu had been confirmed here as of yesterday.

Sir Liam said a National Pandemic Flu Service for England should be up and running towards the end of next week.

The telephone and internet-based service will enable people to get a diagnosis and obtain a unique reference number which gives them access to Tamiflu.
A “flu friend” can then use the number to obtain the antiviral from a depot around the country and take it to the patient.
Sir Liam said the aim of the new flu service was to alleviate pressure on hospitals and GP services, enabling them to look after the “most seriously ill”.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have not yet implemented similar services but could do so in future if pressure on their health services continues to rise.

Twenty six people in England and three in Scotland have now died after contracting the virus.
NHS South East Coast said it was investigating a case but could not confirm whether it was that of an apparently healthy six-year-old boy, who according to some reports died on Wednesday after contracting the virus.

US President Barack Obama yesterday earmarked $1.825 billion in emergency funding to help fight the spread of swine flu.

Latest statistics show that 211 people in the US have died of the illness, with 37,246 reported cases across the country although officials estimate that up to one million people may have been infected.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) estimates there were 55,000 new cases of swine flu in England in the last week, including people visiting GPs and those who are looking after themselves at home.

Up to 85,000 people could be currently affected, the HPA modelling shows. The numbers being treated in English hospitals have doubled in one week to 652, of which 53 are in intensive care.

The highest number of hospitalisations (354) are among those aged 16 to 64, followed by under fives (134) and those aged five to 15 (84).
Cherie Blair, the wife of former prime minister Tony Blair, has pulled out of a series of public engagements while she battles the virus.
Sir Liam said there was now “exceptional influenza activity” across most of the country except Yorkshire and the Humber.

The first deliveries of vaccines in August would not be enough to cover everybody in the high risk groups, Sir Liam said but he added that everybody in these groups would be able to get a vaccine as the UK moved deeper into winter.

Health Secretary Andy Burnham said: “I want the public to be reassured that we have been preparing for the possibility of a pandemic for a number of years and all that pre-planning is now paying dividends.” It emerged yesterday that the Royal College of GPs has criticised aspects of the Government’s handling of the epidemic.

The College said GPs have complained of poor out-of-hours planning, confusion over prescribing the antiviral drug Tamiflu and a lack of knowledge over how long patients should stay at home if they have the virus.

Its own figures have shown that flu rates are highest among those aged five to 14 (159.57 per 100,000 population) with babies and children aged up the four the next most affected group (114.12 per 100,000 population).

There has been a surge in the number of people calling NHS Direct which received 47,701 calls on Wednesday.

Nick Chapman, chief executive of NHS Direct, said: “We are prioritising urgent calls so that people most in need are assessed as quickly as possible and urgent calls are being dealt with in less than 20 minutes.”
Channel 4 News said an Oxford Economics report due out today will warn that the UK’s GDP could fall by 5% in the wake of the swine flu outbreak.
The study will say there is a significant risk that the economy would tip into deflation, postponing economic recovery for another couple of years, the programme reported.

AmcD

The HSE are starting to bombard GP surgeries with swine flu updates again. The most up to date protocol (dated 16th July) says we should diagnose swine flu on clinical grounds and to swab only "severe cases" or cases who have high risk household contacts. It seems that public health have pulled out of supervising the swabs. Now our viral swabs have to go the traditional slow route to the virus reference lab.
The HSE sent us a box of masks and gowns today and four swabs (practice population > 5000).

I think I saw my first case of swine flu today. We are setting up phone surgeries and trying to isolate cases to come in at the end of surgeries when the waiting room has emptied.

Fear

Thats the kind if thing I ment, I meant 4 swabs for a patient populationn of 5000+

One of my mates has come down with suspected swine flu, he told me (over the phone) that their was no swabs or test of any kind, he was just sent home with a prespriction and told to call back in a week.....now if the HSE is telling GP's to do this how can they accurately measure the rate of infection???

I'm starting to get the feeling (with no insult intended to the medical professionals) that this is going to be another half arsed effort by the goverment to do things correctly!!!:mad:

zreba

Fear wrote: »

One of my mates has come down with suspected swine flu, he told me (over the phone) that their was no swabs or test of any kind, he was just sent home with a prespriction and told to call back in a week.....now if the HSE is telling GP's to do this how can they accurately measure the rate of infection???

I don't think their counting ill people any more, as far as i remember WHO changed it's possition, as the pandemic is just too big now, they adviced to stop tracking every single instance of illness and record only dead and people with some not casual symptoms.

Second think is - I would say, most people with FLU like symptoms here at the moment have swine flu, but are just not aware of that.

you can live with that, get better as from any other flu, it's not as bad as many people think

AmcD

Swine flu is diagnosed clinically now, rather than doing swabs. I think the HSE might be planning to keep tabs on numbers with their infectious diseases reporting system. If somebody is suspected to have influenza (including presumably swine flu??), then notification has to be sent to public health.

DrIndy

I get a lot of hysterical reactions when I say they probably have swine flu. Then rationalise it out. There is only one big flu out there. You have a flu now - which one do you think you have? Swine Flu!

Then (to lighten the mood)- "come back if you're eating out of the garbage or have an uncontrollable urge to roll in the mud or notice any new curly tails" and then inform them the party line which is that "we now know its a mild illness so we don't worry about how severe it is any more and so you don't need tamiflu" - not "the fecking government has lost control and won't admit it and they are too stingy to give you any fecking meds you numpty - just put up with it and toughen up"

_Whimsical_

Fear wrote: »

I presume that all the state agencies have plans, but does anyone know any of the details, the when, what, who, why and whens?

There was a small amount of information on the contingency plans in place to deal with the pressure large absenteeism would place on country in yesterdays Independant. The threat of Bird Flu has loomed large enough in the last few years to focus attention on the necessity of having Pandemic contingencies in place for essential services. It doesn't mention what alternative plans would be in place for Gardai etc but I'd imagine the army might help with certain emergency services like those.

From yesterdays Indo :
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/sicknote-nation-1828681.html

Sean Murphy says Ireland has also been forewarned. "The key point is that the whole world got a wake-up call at the time of the bird flu crisis," he says. "If, God forbid, this gets worse, we have best practice guidelines nailed down, a good working group behind it and we have passed on this information to our network."

Forfas, the national policy advisory body for enterprise and science, released a guide in 2007 called Business Continuity Planning -- Responding to an Influenza Pandemic, containing checklists and case studies for companies forming continuity plans.

Declan Hughes, head of competitiveness with Forfas, says the notification from Health that 25pc of the population could be out sick by winter was timely. "We would equate that to a 15pc rate of absenteeism, so this is the time for companies to review their existing continuity plans."

The energy giants have detailed emergency plans that are overseen by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER). The ESB, for example, says that it has "a generic pandemic plan as part of their business continuity plan".

A CER spokesperson said they were "satisfied" that these contingency procedures would be sufficient to keep the national energy grid up and running. "Maintaining security of supply has been our focus. It's not going to be a last-minute panic."

So we should have light and heat to comfort us in the dead of a viral winter. It is also true that if there are more people at home sick, there will be a lower demand for bus, rail and tram services. Even so, says the Department of Transport, they have asked each of the public transport agencies to advise of the up-to-date position on their contingency plans. "Discussions are also taking place with agencies regarding vaccination of essential staff," read a statement released to Review from the Department of Transport.

In the wake of the initial World Health Organisation (WHO) warnings on swine flu back in the late spring, airline companies found their share prices temporarily hit. A more permanent fall in confidence would be the fear for any business that relies on customers to assemble in a public space. The Vintners' Federation of Ireland (VFI), for example, says it is keeping the situation under constant review. "The WHO has claimed the virus is unstoppable and were it to reach levels that are predicted globally, then the swine flu may have an affect on global travel which would of course affect the Irish tourist trade," says VFI Chief Executive Padraig Cribben.

There are, however, some businesses who might benefit from a pandemic. Certainly the pharmaceutical companies manufacturing anti-viral drugs are doing well, such as Swiss company Roche, which has been very busy supplying Tamilflu to stock-piling governments.

Supermarkets and other food and drink retailers would also see a spike in custom if people began to stockpile their cupboards. The larger food retailers have their own contingency plans to get all hands on the shop floor, should staff shortages demand it. Tesco Ireland say that they would be used to similar times like Easter and Christmas, when they would have to get in extra help.

Ultimately, says Sean Murphy of Chambers Ireland, many of those infected with swine flu would come from the more physically vulnerable sections of society, rather than all from the strong, young workforce. However, that presumably could lead to a scenario where, if schools close, say, a large number of parents would have to stay home.

An option, says Patricia Callan, director of the Small Firms Association (SFA), is that companies equip their key employees with the facilities to work from home. But if we're all suddenly working from home, won't that constitute an unbearable strain on our internet providers?

Eircom said in a statement -- sent by email, naturally -- that they have contingency plans to ensure that they maintain critical business operations including broadband, voice and mobile services. They say they are "confident" that their network can cope with increased traffic on the network.

If there is an issue with the contingency plans businesses and public bodies claim they have in place, it is that they are just that -- plans. Declan Hughes of Forfas says that a 15pc absenteeism rate might be manageable for some companies, the US is looking at a worst-case scenario of 40pc. A similar ramp up here in absenteeism would be disastrous.

"The general consensus is that the business community would be shut down," says the SFA's Patricia Callan. Does she fear for the 'green shoots' of progress our depressed economy is touted to be showing? "There are absolutely no green shoots," she says. "The pace of deterioration is slowing but it's still going in the wrong direction. This would be devastating."