20090508/加官员证实一名40岁女性因患甲型H1N1流感死亡

加拿大卫生官员8日证实，艾伯塔省一名40岁女性因患甲型H1N1流感于上月28日死亡。加拿大成为继墨西哥、美国之后，第三个因患甲型H1N1流感导致死亡的国家。至5月8日，加拿大已经确诊有233人患甲型H1N1流感。

Alberta health officials confirm H1N1 flu contributed to woman’s death
The Canadian Press

EDMONTON — Health officials have confirmed that swine flu contributed to the death of a northern Alberta woman — the first person in Canada to die after contracting the illness.

The woman, in her 30s, had other chronic health conditions, said Dr. Andre Corriveau, the province’s chief medical health officer. They were originally blamed for her death on April 28.

“At the time, the physicians taking care of her didn’t even think about flu as a possibility,” Corriveau said Friday.

But when an older relative of the woman developed mild flu-like symptoms and tested positive for the H1N1 virus, officials went back and looked at the case of the woman who had died.

Tissue samples were taken Wednesday and, by late Thursday afternoon, Corriveau and other senior health officials knew she had a mild case of swine flu when she died.

The woman had no history of travel to Mexico, where the outbreak began, and there was no evidence she’d had contact with anyone who’d been there. It appears she passed the virus along to the relative who tested positive, but officials say there is no way to tell for sure.

Dr. Gerry Predy, a senior medical officer of health, said more may be known about her case after the final pathology report is finished next week.

Several hundred people who attended the woman’s funeral are being closely monitored. Nurses have been dispatched to the undisclosed northern community and a temporary clinic has been set up to assess individuals with symptoms.

Anyone with severe symptoms would get antiviral medication. As of Thursday, two people had tested positive for swine flu.

Corriveau said the woman’s relatively young age is not a concern for health officials because she had other medical conditions, putting her at increased risk of serious consequences from influenza. He noted that every year about 4,000 Canadians die of the flu and a high percentage of them have an existing condition that puts them at increased risk.

“It’s something that happens usually in vulnerable people whatever age they might be,” he said. “I don’t think the age is much relevant here. It’s really the cluster of underlying conditions that would make somebody vulnerable.”

He also conceded that public health experts are still piecing together a puzzle of information about this flu strain.

“It’s basically telling us one more time that we don’t seem to be facing a novel virus that is behaving out of the normal. But we’re going to have to pool our data on a continental basis with those in Mexico and those in the United States to get the big picture,” Corriveau said.

Rumours had already begun to swirl about the woman’s death in the days leading up to Friday’s announcement, and several media reported Thursday that officials were investigating a possible swine flu link. Alberta Health Services had refused to comment on the reports.

Corriveau defended the province’s handling of the case, saying it had to wait for tests that came back late Thursday afternoon to confirm what may have already suspected.

“Even though there were rumours in the community, and obviously people were sort of suggesting that there might be an association, there was no way possible for me to report on the fact that we had a confirmed case. I only got that confirmation late in the afternoon.”

A total of 44 people have died of the flu strain in Mexico and two in the U.S.

There are 233 confirmed cases of the outbreak in Canada.

Alberta confirmed nine new cases Friday, including the woman who died, for a total of 42.

A girl who was treated for a more severe case of the flu in an Edmonton-area hospital is well on her way to recovery and is expected to be discharged soon, Corriveau said.

There’s been controversy about the fact that health officials haven’t revealed which school the girl attended, but Predy said that’s a judgment call they’re leaving to school principals.

Nova Scotia confirmed three more cases Friday, bringing its total to 56. British Columbia had six new cases for a total of 60. Prince Edward Island added one new case for a total of three. Nearly all of the cases in Canada have been mild.

Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as the three territories, haven’t officially reported any cases.

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Ontario reports six new cases of H1N1 flu; Hamilton reports first case

The Canadian Press

TORONTO — Ontario reported six new cases of the swine flu Friday, including the first laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus in Hamilton and at the health unit in Hastings and Prince Edward counties, bringing the provincial total to 62.

The other new incidents of the virus were in communities that had previously reported cases — Toronto with three and York with one.

All of the cases were mild, said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s acting chief medical officer of health.

“There are no hospitalizations,” Williams said at the province’s daily update on the flu.

“The numbers will continue to go up over the next few days as we finish off our laboratory testing.”

Ontario’s public health officials also said Friday they would no longer hold daily briefings on swine flu unless there is a major development, and would soon stop reporting the individual number of new cases, as American health officials plan to do.

Williams said the number of Ontario cases being sent to the lab for testing had dropped sharply from a high of up to 700 a day down to 270 on Wednesday.

More than 70 per cent of the tests sent to the labs come back as seasonal flu, which usually ends in April but is likely showing up more now because people with even minor symptoms are more likely to be tested because of the worries over swine flu, Williams said.

“We are still having a lot of people coming forward with seasonal influenza, and other provinces are reporting the same,” he said.

Ontario reports an average of 9,000 cases of seasonal flu each year, and approximately 500 deaths.

Thirty-eight of the 62 confirmed Ontario cases had been to Mexico, while 15 people caught the virus in the province without knowing how they’d been exposed, and another nine cases were still under investigation.

The number of swine flu cases won’t be emphasized as much going forward now that there are more examples of person-to-person transmission in Ontario, and more cases with no travel history to Mexico, Williams said.

“The numbers are becoming less and less important as we’re seeing more widespread (contamination),” he said.

“The Americans have doubled their numbers fairly quickly and (they) won’t be reporting on numbers as (the virus) seems to be moving around the community.”

Health officials also said there is no need for parents to worry about swine flu being spread in schools, even though some students have been confirmed as having the virus.

“We haven’t seen any sustained transmission within school settings,” said Dr. Vivek Goel, CEO of Ontario’s Agency for Health Protection and Promotion.

“There’s really not anything for parents to worry about compared to what they’d be worried about in the regular flu season.”

Williams said there had been no reports of any secondary spread in Ontario schools.

“Public health units will be informing us of any outbreaks in schools, but so far we have not been told of any,” he said.

“We’re dealing with individual cases.”

Health officials confirmed Friday that swine flu was a contributing factor in the death of a northern Alberta woman in her 30s who had other chronic medical conditions.

It’s the first death in Canada associated with the global H1N1 outbreak.

The 300 people who attended the woman’s funeral are now being monitored for any signs of the illness.

A total of 44 people in Mexico and two in the U.S. have died from the flu strain.

There were 233 confirmed cases of the outbreak strain of H1N1 in Canada as of Friday.