Saturday, June 20, 2009

"Swine flu" confirmed cases hit 84 in South Korea; up 19 from two days earlier

I haven't updated this for a week, and we've seen a big jump in H1N1 infections: from 65 on the WHO's June 17 report to 84 on the June 19 report (these will not include confirmations from the the last news cycle or so). 

The US, which had been reporting a majority of cases, has dropped to 40% of all cases as the virus moves to more regions. While Mexico and the US have experienced the lion's share of deaths, a total of ten countries have had experienced fatalities. This may point more toward how the infection spread or was handled than the actual virulence (mortality is about 0.4%). 

Australia's 2200 cases is the very reason South Korean authorities (and their neighbors) are so skittish right now. In case you forgot, the reasons are here

From a public health standpoint, it is interesting to note that no deaths have been reported in Australia; health care delivery systems and public health networks should take a look into what similarities or differences between the US and Australia may be factors. 

2 comments:

  1. Korea's bricking it about all the students due to come back from Australia and North America this summer. If they can keep cases controlled they might avoid an explosion of them in the winter, which is really what the worry is.
    Korea might have a problem in the summer, too, what with all the air conditioning.
    They do seem to keep stuffing up quarantine though.
    Word verication is evola -- one letter away from ebola. Nasty.

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  2. The goal, I believe, is to prevent an outbreak as much as possible before a proper vaccine is developed.

    That is twofold: it keeps as few people getting sick from what is a more virulent strain, and (more importantly, as I understand it) with fewer infections there is less opportunity for the virus to mutate into something even worse, as has happened in the pat.

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