Wednesday, December 2, 2009

China H1N1 (2 articles)

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP) – 2 hours ago
China death toll from swine flu triples in 2 weeks

BEIJING — The number of swine flu deaths in China has more than tripled in two weeks with the onset of winter, the Health Ministry said late Tuesday.

By Sunday, the Chinese mainland had recorded 178 deaths from the H1N1 virus - a threefold-plus jump from the 53 deaths announced Nov. 15, according to the ministry's Web site.

The ministry also said three of four recent deaths reported after people received swine flu vaccinations have been determined to have no link to the inoculations themselves, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The three deaths were "coincidental," Liang Wannian, director of the ministry's emergency response office, was quoted as saying. Results for the fourth death are still pending.

Of the 26 million people inoculated so far nationwide, a tiny fraction - 2,867 - reported adverse reactions, Liang said. Most of those reactions were fever or swelling, he said.

"Clinical tests and practices in China and other countries have shown the A/H1N1 flu vaccines are safe," Liang said.

More than 90,000 people in China have been infected with swine flu and nearly 80 per cent have recovered, Xinhua reported.

By comparison, China's figures are much smaller than in the United States. Since it was first identified in April, swine flu has sickened an estimated 22 million Americans, hospitalized about 98,000 and killed 4,000.

The flu situation in China is still "severe" as the number of cases and fatalities grows with the onset of winter, Liang said.

Swine flu made up about 90 per cent of all flu cases in recent weeks. Schools are still the main venue for prevention, with nationwide vaccinations continuing.


Dec 1, 2009
In China, Real Statistics of H1N1 Infection Kept Secret

Hospitals told to diagnose ordinary flu, pneumonia


The official H1N1 death toll in China’s northwestern province of Jilin was two as of Nov. 15, according to the province’s Health Bureau. The real death toll far exceeds that number, according to information from staff workers at the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

One staff worker who did not wish to be identified told The Epoch Times that “estimates of the H1N1 death toll cannot possibly be very accurate.”

“As far as we are concerned, the statistics of H1N1 infection are a secret. We have an obligation to keep it secret. We cannot even tell our parents about it,” said the staff worker, who is based at the CDC in Jilin Province’s Changchun City.

The staff worker further explained that, "Hospitals only test for H1N1 on critically ill patients to monitor changes in the H1N1 virus. Routine testing for H1N1 on less severely ill patients is almost non-existent: Most cases were just treated like ordinary flu, as required by the government. When there is a cluster infection, tests are only run on a few patients, and we don’t do it based on individual requests."

The staff worker also admitted that some of the deaths due to H1N1 infection were not included in the H1N1 death toll since tests were only conducted on critically ill patients. Changchun City’s CDC has also reported cases like this to the Health Bureau, according to the staff worker, adding that, “Whether the Health Bureau will publish the true data or not, we don’t have the right to intervene.”

This staff member’s information corroborates evidence given to The Epoch Times by another CDC staff member a few days ago—that many students have recently contracted the H1N1 virus. Many schools were shut down because of the disease at the time, although some chose not to report the situation, and thus the CDC does not know the exact figure.

An official from the Jilin Province Health Bureau, when contacted by The Epoch Times, said that patients now have to spend their own money to be treated for the H1N1 infection, as the regime has stopped providing coverage since August or September. He refused to comment further.

Zhong Nansha, an academic of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a noted Chinese medical expert expressed his doubt of the official estimate of the H1N1 death toll in a report published by Guangzhou Daily on Nov. 19.
Jilin Authorities’ Coverup Guarantees Report of Zero Fatalities

A Chinese blogger posted an article on China’s famous Baidu Tieba (the Chinese equivalent of Google), stating he suspected that some critically ill patients, including one of his own family members in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in Jilin City Hospital had H1N1 infection.

Although the official diagnosis for this blogger’s relative was severe pneumonia, judging from the medication prescribed by the hospital, he suspects his relative has H1N1 infection. The high medical cost, which ran over 10,000 yuan (US$1,500) per day for 12 days, was a huge financial burden for the blogger’s family. After treatment, the patient still did not show any signs of improvement.

The blogger also said that there were patients with similar symptoms who were admitted to the ICU, and five of them were in a coma. There were also patients with similar symptoms in the nearby Railroad Hospital.

“There were clearly cases of H1N1 infection, yet they do not confirm or explain the cases. They only stated that these were severe cases of pneumonia. Covering up and avoiding reporting H1N1 infection is now a fact of public health,” according to the blogger.

He also indicated that the Jilin provincial government had promised the State Council that there will not be any fatalities recorded due to H1N1 infection in Jilin Province, and the promise was kept at the cost of blocking reports on H1N1 infection and going so far as stopping testing for H1N1 in elementary/middle schools and various medical facilities.

A 25-year woman who was seven months pregnant was admitted to the ICU ward of the Jilin City Hospital for H1N1 infection. The woman had a normal delivery, but the baby was already stillborn, according to the blogger.

Although 80 percent of flu cases in Jilin City were H1N1 infections, hospitals were instructed to not to give an H1N1 diagnosis, but instead to diagnose suspected cases as regular flu or pneumonia, according to another blogger who said he was given this information by a relative who is a nurse.

Yet another blogger stated that although nearly 400 students in his school had developed fever, not a single H1N1 diagnosis was given, and nobody showed any concern.

Vaccine No Longer Reliable Due to H1N1 Mutation

Major foreign media have reported the H1N1 mutation in China, a fact that Chinese authorities can no longer deny. As a result, many Chinese have started questioning the efficacy of the H1N1 vaccine.

“It is not our time to give students the H1N1 vaccine shots yet. But I think [they will not necessarily] develop immunity even if they are given the shots, due to the mutation of the virus,” an employee of the Changchun University of Science and Technology said when contacted by The Epoch Times, adding that, “The school is under lockdown. Students have to show their student ID’s to go in and out. The weather is unstable and many people have come down with the flu.”

When The Epoch Times contacted Jilin University, the reporter was told that classes were suspended in September and many students were infected with H1N1 when they returned to school after the Oct. 1 National Day. “Now students basically just stay in the school and wear masks when they are in public places.”

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25896/99999999/1/1/

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