Nenhum caso confirmado de gripe suína no Brasil...

Especialmente porque os kits de identificação ainda não chegaram e nenhuma amostra foi enviada para laboratórios no exterior...

É engraçado o pessoal do s EUA torcendo para que o verão chege logo no hemisfério norte, e atentos para o que acontecerá com o hemistério sul no inverno (ver frase em negrito, nós seremos as cobaias ou canários de mineiros, digamos assim).

Do blog Effect Measure, Science Blogs.

Swine flu: what does "so far, so good" mean?

Posted on: May 7, 2009 6:53 AM, by revere

The idea this is "mild" flu virus is so far true, but mild is a relative term, as we have pointed out here. And "so far" is another important qualifier. This virus is spreading relatively quickly, but it isn't everywhere and not much time has passed. With exceedingly virulent strains like the 1918 virus many people died relatively quickly but with flu death usually comes weeks after the onset of infection. Not that many people have been infected as yet. If the pace of new cases accelerates, we will likely seem many more hospitalizations (currently there are only 35 in the US) and more deaths (currently there are two):

"My own personal view is that it is too early to say what the severity is," says [Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health], who works with the CDC as part of a 'Team B' made up of academic researchers and other outside advisers. One reason the disease appears mild is that in the United States there has been only one reported death among 286 cases. But such case-fatality rates, reported one week after a case is confirmed, can underestimate actual mortality rates, because they can overlook patients who remain ill and subsequently die. This was demonstrated in 2003, when the reported case-fatality rate of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Asia was initially put at a few per cent — only to be found to be closer to 20% in studies that followed up cases. (Declan Butler, Nature)

So the question remains. Are we like the man who jumps from the Empire State Building and says as he passes the 14th floor, "So far, so good"?

Let's hope not, but with influenza one cannot be sure of anything. In the coming months we will be watching the southern hemisphere closely to see what happens as they enter their flu season. That may give us a clue as to what to expect in the fall.

. . . or it may not.

FOTO: Judy Trunnel - primeira cidadã americana vítima da gripe suína. 

This week should have been a joyous time for Judy Trunnell, a 33-year-old teacher who had just given birth to a healthy baby girl.