A SECOND wave of swine flu may hit Australia as soon as next month, a top infectious diseases expert warns.
Paediatrician Professor Robert Booy, from the University of Sydney’s Children’s Hospital, spoke out yesterday saying he was concerned at the low take-up of vaccinations against the virus.
He says critics who questioned the value of the vaccines sounded the “death-knell” for what would otherwise have been a way to control the virus, subsequently reducing its spread and the deaths the virus is likely to cause.
Other continents, including Europe and Asia, have already had a second wave “and ours is coming”, he said.
Prof Booy added that not enough people were immune through previous exposure or vaccination to allow the virus to be successfully controlled.
“There are reports from countries suggesting that uptake of the new vaccine for H1N1 2009 may be somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent of the population,” he said.
Almost 30 South Australians died with swine flu last year, and about 9000 people had confirmed cases.
SA Health chief medical officer Prof Paddy Phillips said that swine flu and seasonal flu could strike at any time of the year, and that swine flu had a worse effect on younger and healthier people.
Read more…AdelaideNow… Second wave of swine flu feared
HEALTH experts are warning that Australians can expect a second wave of swine flu, possibly as early as the beginning of the school year just a fortnight away.
With a new report finding Australia’s public health response failed to prevent the H1N1 pandemic last year – and that mass casualties and a collapse of the health system would have resulted had it not been a benign strain – the Australian Medical Association has said it is likely swine flu will strike again.
AMA vice-president Steven Hambleton, a member of the national pandemic planning committee, said yesterday it would be difficult to prevent a “second wave” as the virus was again sweeping the northern hemisphere.
It has also overtaken all other strains of the virus as the dominant variety of influenza.
Overseas H1N1 comprises 99 per cent of all flu strains, while in Australia that figure is about 80 per cent.
Read more…Second wave of swine flu set to strike | News.com.au
More than 1,600 people have been confirmed with swine flu in Western Australia, up by more than 200 in less than two days.
On Sunday, there were about 1,400 reported cases but that number has jumped to 1,636.
There are 19 people with the virus being treated in hospital, and nine of those are in intensive care.
The number of cases are expected to peak within the next two to three weeks.
Swine flu numbers swell – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
A THIRD man has died in the Northern Territory after contracting
swine flu.
The middle-aged Katherine man had a number of long standing, serious medical conditions, as well as influenza A(H1N1), said Northern Territory Department of Health and Families spokesman Robin Osborne.
The man died at Royal Darwin Hospital this morning.
Since Friday evening, 101 new cases of H1N1 influenza have been recorded in the Northern Territory, Mr Osborne said.
This takes the total number of confirmed swine flu cases in the Northern Territory to 963, NT health said.
The Australian total is 12,048, the federal health department said.
32 people with swine flu have died in Australia so far.
Earlier today Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said 194 people remained in hospital with the disease, more than a third of whom were in intensive care.
She said she expected the outbreak to persist for months to come but believed the worst was almost over.
Third man with swine flu dies in Northern Territory | National Breaking News | News.com.au
