Number in U.K. not on target-update more posts

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Osterholm called Britain's official numbers "meaningless" and said
while authorities were not hiding cases, they also weren't looking very
hard for the virus. 
"The numbers in Britain are really not telling the story," Osterholm said. 

This is an older link but the info is indicative of the current U.K. situation. Official reports have been the case are declining- but one reason is testing and monitoring are almost unverifiable from any source. 
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090522/h1n1_uk_090522/20090522?hub=Health

Swine flu was first detected in Britain last month. Experts say flu
viruses only need a couple of weeks to become established in a new
location. 
Albert Osterhaus, a virologist at Erasmus MC University in the
Netherlands, said once the virus has been circulating, it's time to
abandon the containment strategy and save Tamiflu for patients. 
Experts said Britain's attempt to squash swine flu might also be
masking the true size of the outbreak. Antivirals like Tamiflu work by
reducing the amount of virus in a person's body, so people who have
swine flu and are taking Tamiflu might test negative for the virus. 
"Using Tamiflu to contain a virus may nip (an outbreak) in the bud ... but you might also pick up fewer cases," said Osterhaus. 
Still, Britain's Health Protection Agency defended its methods. 
"We are still in the early phases of the swine flu outbreak," a
spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with
official government policy. "We believe containment is still an
effective strategy but we will certainly reconsider it if swine flu
spreads." 
Pekosz said the low numbers of confirmed cases in Britain could also be due to limited testing. 
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing up to
400 specimens a day, but the British health agency has refused to say
how many tests are being done daily. The U.K. is also only testing
people with a history of visiting infected countries like Mexico or the
United States, or people with links to already-established cases. That
limited criteria means authorities could be missing lots of other cases
if the virus has already spread into communities. 
Medclinician

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Medclinician Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List V.I.P. Member Valued Member Since 2006 Joined: July 08 2009 Status: Offline Points: 23322	Post Options Post Reply Quote Medclinician Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Number in U.K. not on target-update more posts Posted: August 27 2009 at 5:52am
	Osterholm called Britain's official numbers "meaningless" and said while authorities were not hiding cases, they also weren't looking very hard for the virus. "The numbers in Britain are really not telling the story," Osterholm said. This is an older link but the info is indicative of the current U.K. situation. Official reports have been the case are declining- but one reason is testing and monitoring are almost unverifiable from any source. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090522/h1n1_uk_090522/20090522?hub=Health Swine flu was first detected in Britain last month. Experts say flu viruses only need a couple of weeks to become established in a new location. Albert Osterhaus, a virologist at Erasmus MC University in the Netherlands, said once the virus has been circulating, it's time to abandon the containment strategy and save Tamiflu for patients. Experts said Britain's attempt to squash swine flu might also be masking the true size of the outbreak. Antivirals like Tamiflu work by reducing the amount of virus in a person's body, so people who have swine flu and are taking Tamiflu might test negative for the virus. "Using Tamiflu to contain a virus may nip (an outbreak) in the bud ... but you might also pick up fewer cases," said Osterhaus. Still, Britain's Health Protection Agency defended its methods. "We are still in the early phases of the swine flu outbreak," a spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with official government policy. "We believe containment is still an effective strategy but we will certainly reconsider it if swine flu spreads." Pekosz said the low numbers of confirmed cases in Britain could also be due to limited testing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing up to 400 specimens a day, but the British health agency has refused to say how many tests are being done daily. The U.K. is also only testing people with a history of visiting infected countries like Mexico or the United States, or people with links to already-established cases. That limited criteria means authorities could be missing lots of other cases if the virus has already spread into communities. Medclinician

Medclinician Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List V.I.P. Member Valued Member Since 2006 Joined: July 08 2009 Status: Offline Points: 23322	Post Options Post Reply Quote Medclinician Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: August 27 2009 at 8:01pm
	At its summer peak, British authorities guessed there were about 110,000 new cases of swine flu every week. The number of new cases dropped last week to about 11,000, but the autumn-winter flu season has not yet begun. http://www.smh.com.au/world/super-flu-fear-as-swine-strain-moves-to-birds-20090822-eug1.html comment: delayed but valuable news. We are still trying to pin down the 'summer peak'. They stopped reporting in July and they did not have anything like 110,000 new cases a week. The new numbers have dropped because it has been reported by several sources the testing is almost non existent as well as reporting of cases in U.K. If they hit 110,000 cases a week in the first wave, what will the second wave be like. The massive stockpiles against new resistant strains of H1N1 to Tamiflu will make the world stockpiles as well worthless. This is the fault of the medical community for using Tamiflu, especially in Japan in large doses for every kind of flu, thus producing resistant strains years ago- in Japanese children in some cases. Tracking the Swine Flu in U.K. has grown almost as difficult as tracking it in the U.S. or China. Stopping counting and reporting is not helping us keep track of infection or the CFR or the disease. Finally, we got some number I have posted from CDC which indicates a possible close to 1% infection rate. These numbers are unreliable. For 2 1/2 years I have been warning against our dependency on Tamiflu to bail us out of a Pandemic. The mass usage of this on hundreds of millions of people is going to totally make it useless. SADLY- government top secret safe houses and shelters are stacked with the stuff or the infrastructure and it may soon prove to be useless. There are huge storage areas stockpile for use on the infrasture to cure the flu. Last flu season, a sizable amount of the the virus became Tamiflu resistant -finally almost to 100%. .gov has gotten sharper increasing its percent of Relenza (there now are even resistant strains to Relenza -) which was pretty effective. In quest of the shorter post. I stop. More to follow. Medclinician