SWINE FLU NEWS

May 15, 2009 — Upward of 100,000 Americans may have already come down with the novel H1N1 influenza, based on the number of confirmed or probable cases, an official with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said at a press conference today.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services is still deliberating with vaccine makers about possible production of an H1N1 vaccine, even as European countries have already placed massive orders for such a vaccine with drug maker GlaxoSmithKline.

As of 11 am EDT today, the CDC is reporting 4714 confirmed and probable cases in 46 states and the District of Columbia and a total of 4 deaths in the United States. Daniel Jernigan, MD, PhD, deputy director of the Influenza Division of the CDC, said today that this tally probably is not the best gauge of how widely the H1N1 virus has spread, noting that the CDC normally does not count confirmed and probable cases of seasonal influenza.

"If we had to make an estimate, the amount of activity we're seeing is probably upwards to maybe 100,000 [cases], but that's something we'll have a much better estimate of once we get information back from the field teams collecting that data," said Dr. Jernigan.

He said the Department of Health and Human Services was taking the necessary steps in deciding whether or not to gear up for H1N1 vaccine production for the United States. European countries have already made that move. Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline announced Friday that it had received orders from the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, and Finland to purchase 128 million doses of an H1N1 vaccine that the company intends to manufacture once it receives the seed virus from the World Health Organization. The vaccine would contain an adjuvant that stimulates a higher immune response to the antigen material, stretching the vaccine supply. Dr. Jernigan noted that although adjuvanted vaccines are already in use in European countries, they have not yet been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States.

Discussions of vaccine production have been laced with fears that the new H1N1 virus could morph into a more virulent form, rendering it less vulnerable to any new vaccine. "We're not seeing significant evidence of mutation toward more virulence," noted Dr. Jernigan.

In other developments, the CDC announced Friday that it would be downgrading its travel advisory to Mexico from a warning to a precaution by day's end. The warning advisory had recommended that people avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico.

As of 1 am EDT today, the WHO is reporting 7520 laboratory-confirmed cases, including 65 deaths, in 34 countries. This tally represents an increase of 1023 cases from Thursday.