http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=a.vkoV4rsbpE

Sorority Rush, Football Teams Spur College Swine Flu (Update1)

By Meg Tirrell and Tom Randall

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Swine flu infected hundreds of students in at least 17 U.S. colleges in the first weeks of school, providing evidence the virus is resurging as it races through sorority events and football practices.

The U.S. is undergoing the highest influenza rates for this time of year since the 1968 Hong Kong flu, said Joe Quimby , a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. School officials said they are preparing buses to transport the sick, isolation dorms and vaccination drive-throughs. College students are the least likely age group to avail themselves of the shots, key this year because young people are most susceptible to the H1N1 strain, health officials said.

“You can envision 200 young people being stuffed into the basement of a smoky fraternity — what a perfect breeding ground for disease,” said Jim Turner , director of the Department of Student Health at the University of Virginia and president of the American College Health Association . He has been tracking outbreaks at U.S. colleges.

Mississippi State University, in Starkville, has had more than 250 people with flu-like symptoms since July 15, said Robert Cadenhead, administrator of the student health center, in a telephone interview. The University of Kansas in Lawrence counted more than 100 sick, according to Todd Cohen, a spokesman for the school. The University of Tennessee in Knoxville estimates at least 100 students showed flu symptoms since classes started Aug. 19, said Amy Blakely, a spokeswoman.

“This is the type of flu activity that we’ve been preparing for,” the CDC’s Quimby said in a telephone interview from the agency’s Atlanta headquarters. “The H1N1 flu never went away this summer.”

Not a ‘Serious Disease’

College students “don’t think flu is a serious disease, so they don’t need to be vaccinated from it,” said Allan Markus, a doctor and director of campus health services at Arizona State University in Tempe. His school started seasonal flu vaccines during its welcome week, counting on parents to help convince students to get shots, he said.

During a normal flu season, which typically lasts from November through March, schools provide vaccines at campus health clinics and may recommend that students wash their hands and cover their coughs, messages that are often lost on college students. This year, with the number of infections already starting to grow, they are doubling down on those efforts, giving seasonal flu shots more than a month early and posting hand sanitizer dispensers and flu safety posters across campus.

The outbreaks are unusual at this time of year and Turner said it will take a few weeks for scientists to determine whether college-borne clusters of infection turn into widespread outbreaks across states.

Dominant Strain

Swine flu is now the dominant strain in the world, and countries in the Northern Hemisphere should prepare for a wave of infections, the World Health Organization in Geneva said on Aug. 28. Laboratory tests have confirmed H1N1 in 2,185 deaths and more than 209,000 infections worldwide, though the majority of infected patients are never tested, the WHO said.

Flu season in the U.S. typically kills about 36,000 people annually, according to the CDC. The U.S. has already had more than 80 outbreaks at summer camps, unprecedented at that time of year, the CDC said.

The health agency is developing vaccine ads aimed at recalcitrant college students to be distributed through popular Web services including YouTube , Facebook and Twitter , said Kris Sheedy , a director at the CDC’s public communications program, in an interview at their Atlanta headquarters.

Mid-October Vaccine

Seasonal flu shots have arrived or will soon be available at most U.S. colleges. A separate vaccine for swine flu, which may require two shots given over a three-week period, won’t be ready until mid-October, the CDC said on Aug. 18. That’s too late this semester to curb outbreaks among students with no natural immunity.

Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, has seen 75 sick patients in three weeks. Some of the cases were attributed to students attending sorority rush before school started, said Gary Shutt , a spokesman for the school.

Sorority rush is conducive to spreading flu because women must spend a week traveling in groups and meeting with each sorority house, said JB Feldman, a 21-year-old computer science major at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Sorority Rush

“In sorority recruitment, if someone feels sick and they want to join a sorority, they’re probably going to go anyway,” Feldman said in a telephone interview. He is in a fraternity, where there’s no formal recruitment process. None of his closest friends have had any swine flu symptoms.

“For me, it’s not really a concern,” Feldman said. “Everything I’ve seen says it’s no more deadly, nor any more contagious than a regular flu. We get e-mails all the time. Basically any organization on campus gets lectured about just washing your hands and stuff.”

Colleges are encouraging professors and campus organizations to be lenient about absences. Sick students should stay home, and a doctor’s note shouldn’t be required to justify absences, the CDC said Aug. 26 in its guidelines for higher education .

One of the ads the CDC is considering is aimed at college students who don’t want to miss the events that make college exciting, said Sheedy who recounted the video. It starts with a student answering a knock on her dorm-room door.

Targeted Advertisements

“Hi, it’s H1N1 flu, and I’m here to ruin everything,” says the unexpected visitor in the video. “You know that date you had planned for Saturday night? Ruined! You know that trip you were going to take? Ruined!”

“It’s really cute,” said Sheedy. “If something cute or cutting-edge is what it takes to get their attention, then that’s what we’ll do.”

Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, had 25 players on its football team sick this month. It has reserved an off- campus apartment building with about 30 beds to house students at higher-risk for being harmed by flu, spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said. Amherst College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, is keeping as many as three residence halls empty this fall to isolate swine flu patients, with capacity for 75 students.

‘Flu Bus’

The University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, started a “flu bus” to transport sick students from residence halls to health services. With a large campus, the university wants to avoid infections spreading on public transportation, said Robert Winfield, Michigan’s chief health officer and director of the university health service.

The University of Arizona in Tucson is planning a drive- through clinic for flu shots later in September, spokesman Johnny Cruz said. The campus has seen 25 cases in the few weeks since students returned.

“You can just pull up, get your shot and keep going,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is a way to do it faster and to limit interactions among people that might be ill.”

Testing Stopped

Most campuses have stopped testing students for H1N1 and instead are tracking the number of students showing flu-like symptoms. The CDC continues to sample patients at designated hospitals and doctors offices to track the size and location of outbreaks.

“We continue to see cases in the student health center every day,” said Cathy Andreen, a spokeswoman for the University of Alabama. “We had seen about 50 last Friday (Aug. 21), but I don’t have a running total.”

Students up to age 24 are one of five targeted groups to get the vaccines, the CDC said. The others are health-care workers, pregnant women, adults with underlying health conditions and parents and caretakers of infants under age 6. Symptoms in most cases are similar to normal flu, though an unusual number of young people are ending up in hospitals with severe cases.

Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth, has been treating sick patients with antiviral medicines and delivering meals to dorm rooms for students who live on campus, Lisa Albert, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

“The students have been truly responsive,” Kansas’s Cohen said. “They want to stay healthy. They’re excited they’re on campus.”

“We don’t have the flu police going around saying, ‘hey look, you’ve got a sniffle, you should be getting out of here,’” said Arizona State’s Markus. “When you have 65,000 students, you have to get the information out there and ask the students to do the right thing.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gZ8Zlj-J4JAGBVX44URTwVV53E0QD9AE3MIG0

http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm048750.htm

A Parent’s Guide to Kids’ Vaccines

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aKTs33_Y.FnU  

Hurricane Jimena Heads for Mexico’s Baja; Warning May Be Issued By Heather Langan and Aaron Sheldrick Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Hurricane Jimena headed for western Mexico as a “powerful” Category 4 storm, with winds of almost 230 kilometers (145 miles) per hour, and may prompt a warning for the southern Baja California peninsula later today, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The eye was about 395 kilometers southwest of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, the center said in an advisory posted on its Web site just before 4 a.m. Mexico City time. The storm was moving northwest at almost 13 kph and is forecast to make landfall on Baja California’s west coast late tomorrow and track up the peninsula. Hurricane-force winds of at least 119 kph extend 45 kilometers from the eye. “Jimena remains a powerful Category 4 hurricane,” the center in Miami said. Residents “in the southern and central Baja California peninsula and in western mainland Mexico should monitor the progress of Jimena.” A hurricane watch was in effect for Baja California, from Bahia Magdalena southward on the west coast of the peninsula and from San Evaristo southward on the east coast, meaning such conditions are expected within 36 hours. The watch may be upgraded to a warning, the center said. Jimena’s maximum sustained winds increased today from about 225 kph yesterday and some fluctuation in strength is possible, forecasters said. Hurricanes become “major” when sustained winds reach 178 kph, or Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Category 4 storms have sustained winds of 210 to 249 kph and are capable of causing “devastating damage,” the center said. Tropical Storm Kevin Tropical Storm Kevin, which formed two days ago to the west of Jimena, was “barely a tropical storm” and is forecast to weaken into a depression today, the center said in a separate advisory . Kevin, which had sustained winds of almost 65 kph, was centered 1,435 kilometers west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California just before 4 a.m. Mexico City time. Kevin was moving north-northeast at almost 9 kph. The hurricane center was also monitoring an area of low pressure over the Atlantic Ocean, about 700 miles east of the Windward Islands. There is a greater than 50 percent chance the system will develop into a tropical cyclone within 48 hours, the center said. The system may pose a threat to the Lesser Antilles as it moves west-northwest at about 15 mph, the center said. The Lesser Antilles include the U.S. Virgin and British Virgin Islands, Martinique , St. Lucia , St. Vincent and the Grenadines. To contact the reporters responsible for this story: Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo at asheldrick@bloomberg.net ; Heather Langan in London at hlangan@bloomberg.net . Last Updated: August 31, 2009 05:32 EDT

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_13235027

Air quality worsens near SoCal wildfire

LOS ANGELES—The regional air quality agency has issued a smoke advisory, warning all residents who live near the massive Southern California wildfire to remain indoors and avoid strenuous activity.

Link to complete story:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/us/31orleans.html?th&emc=th

NY Times

New Orleans Sees an Opportunity to Improve on Its Past

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083100393.html

Return of swine flu: What’s ahead for Americans?

By LAURAN NEERGAARD
The Associated Press
Monday, August 31, 2009 3:13 AM

WASHINGTON — The alarm sounded with two sneezy children in California in April. Just five months later, the never-before-seen swine flu has become the world’s dominant strain of influenza, and it’s putting a shockingly younger face on flu.

So get ready. With flu’s favorite chilly weather fast approaching, we’re going to be a sick nation this fall. The big unknown is how sick. One in five people infected or a worst case – half the population? The usual 36,000 deaths from flu or tens of thousands more?

The World Health Organization predicts that within two years, nearly one-third of the world’s population will have caught it.

"What we know is, it’s brand new and no one really has an immunity to this disease," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says.

A lot depends on whether the swine flu that simmered all summer erupts immediately as students crowd back into schools and colleges – or holds off until millions of vaccine doses start arriving in mid-October.

Only this week do U.S. researchers start blood tests to answer a critical question: How many doses of swine flu vaccine does it take to protect? The answer will determine whether many people need to line up for two flu shots – one against swine flu and one against the regular flu – or three.

The hopeful news: Even with no vaccine, winter is ending in the Southern Hemisphere without as much havoc as doctors had feared, a heavy season that started early but not an overwhelming one. The strain that doctors call the 2009 H1N1 flu isn’t any deadlier than typical winter flu so far. Most people recover without treatment; many become only mildly ill.

Importantly, careful genetic tracking shows no sign yet that the virus is mutating into a harsher strain.

We’re used to regular flu that, sadly, kills mostly grandparents. But the real shock of swine flu is that infections are 20 times more common in the 5- to 24-year-old age group than in people over 65. That older generation appears to have some resistance, probably because of exposure decades ago to viruses similar to the new one.

Worldwide, swine flu is killing mostly people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, ages when influenza usually is shrugged off as a nuisance.

Especially at risk are pregnant women. So are people with chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease and neuromuscular diseases including muscular dystrophy. Some countries report more deaths among the obese.

Still, some of the people who’ve died didn’t have obvious health risks.

"People who argue we’re seeing the same death rates miss the point – they’re in young adults. To me, that shouldn’t happen," said one infectious disease specialist, Dr. Richard P. Wenzel of Virginia Commonwealth University. He spent the past few months visiting South American hospitals to help gauge what the Northern Hemisphere is about to face.

Children, however, are the flu’s prime spreaders. Already, elementary schools and colleges are reporting small clusters of sick students. For parents, the big fear is how many children will die.

Panicked crowds flooded India’s hospitals in August after a 14-year-old girl became that country’s first death. In the U.S., regular flu kills 80 to 100 children every winter, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reports of about three dozen child deaths from swine flu.

Even if the risk of death is no higher than in a normal year, the sheer volume of ill youngsters means "a greater than expected number of deaths in children is likely," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. "As a society, that’s something that’s much harder for us."

Swine flu quietly sickened hundreds in Mexico before U.S. researchers stumbled across two children in San Diego who had the same mystery illness. A world already spooked by the notorious Asian bird flu raced to stem the spread of this surprising new virus. Mexico closed schools and restaurants, and barred spectators from soccer games; China quarantined planeloads of tourists. But there was no stopping the novel H1N1 – named for its influenza family – from becoming the first pandemic in 41 years.

Well over 1 million Americans caught swine flu in spring and summer months when influenza hardly ever circulates; more than 500 have died.

In July, England was reporting more than 100,000 infections a week.

Argentina gave pregnant women 15 paid days off last month at the height of its flu season, hoping that staying home would prove protective.

In Saudi Arabia, people younger than 12 and older than 65 are being barred from this November’s hajj, the pilgrimage to holy cities that many Muslims save up their whole lives to make.

And in Australia – closely watched by the U.S. and Europe as a predictor for their own coming flu seasons – hospitals set up clinics outside the main doors to keep possible flu sufferers from entering and infecting other patients.

"While this disease is mild for most people, it does have that severe edge," said Australia’s health minister Nicola Roxon, who counted over 30,000 cases in a country of nearly 22 million. That’s comparable to its last heavy flu season in 2007.

Cases are dropping fast as winter there ends. But Australia still plans to start the world’s first large-scale vaccinations next month in case of a rebound, inoculating about 4 million high-risk people.

Most amazing to longtime flu researchers, this new H1N1 strain seems to account for about 70 percent of all flu now circulating in the world. In Australia, eight of every 10 people who tested positive for flu had the pandemic strain.

That begs the question: Do people still need to bother with regular flu vaccine?

Definitely, stressed CDC’s Schuchat, who plans to get both kinds. There’s still enough regular flu circulating to endanger people, especially the 65-and-older generation.

Notably, South Africa is having a one-two punch of a flu season, hit first with a seasonal strain known as H3N2 and now seeing swine flu move in.

Wash your hands, sneeze into your elbow, stay home so you don’t spread illness when you’re sick. That’s the mantra until vaccine arrives.

This week brings a key milestone. Hundreds of U.S. adults who rolled up their sleeves for a first shot in studies of the swine flu vaccine return for a blood test to see if they seem protected. It will take government scientists a few weeks to analyze results, but the volunteers get a second vaccine dose right away, in case the first wasn’t enough.

The vaccine, merely a recipe change from the usual flu vaccine, seems safe. Federal authorities two weeks ago gave the go-ahead to start children’s vaccine trials.

"It’s been a piece of cake," said Kate Houley of Annapolis, Md., who jumped at the chance to enroll her three sons, ensuring that if the vaccine really works, they’ll have some protection as school gets started. Eleven-year-old Ethan was among the first to be vaccinated by University of Maryland researchers and didn’t even report the main side effect – a sore arm.

In the U.S., Britain and parts of Europe, vaccinations are set to begin in mid-October, assuming those studies show they work. First in line:

-Pregnant women. Despite accounting for about 1 percent of the U.S. population, they’ve been accounting for 6 percent of the swine flu deaths.

-Children and young adults from 6 months to 24 years. Babies younger than 6 months can’t get flu vaccine, so their parents and other caregivers should be inoculated to protect the infant.

-Health care workers.

-Younger adults with risky health conditions.

Schools around the U.S. are preparing to inoculate children in what could be the largest campus vaccinations since the days of polio. The government has bought 195 million doses and will ship them a bit at a time, starting with 45 million doses or so in October, to state health departments to dispense.

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials is negotiating with pharmacists to help perform those vaccinations. Massachusetts even is deputizing dentists to help give swine flu vaccine, and passed emergency regulations to encourage more health care workers to get either the shot or a nasal spray version.

What if people not on the priority list show up? The idea is for pharmacists to gently encourage them to come back a few weeks later, said the association’s executive director, Dr. Paul Jarris.

A concern is whether enough people are worried about swine flu to get vaccinated.

"Complacency is a big challenge," said CDC’s Schuchat. "We are trying to strike a balance between complacency and alarm."

Ten-year-old Isabella Nataro had a cousin sent home from summer camp because of an outbreak, and she readily agreed when her mother, a University of Maryland vaccine researcher, signed her and her brothers up for a study of the new shot. (The store gift card that participating kids receive after each blood test was a bonus.)

"I’m kind of worried about my friends if swine flu does come to our school," the suburban Baltimore girl said. "I hope everybody else at my school gets a chance to get it."

Qaddafi’s Visit Upsets N.J. Residents

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gZ8Zlj-J4JAGBVX44URTwVV53E0QD9ADOPNO0

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON and JULIET WILLIAMS (AP) – 1 hour ago

LOS ANGELES — Firefighters tried to hold back a massive wildfire from consuming thousands of homes and an essential communications center in Los Angeles County as they mourned two of their own who were killed when their vehicle was overrun by fast-moving flames and rolled down a mountain side.

About 12,000 homes, as well as crucial communications and astronomy centers atop Mount Wilson, were threatened the fire. On the blaze’s northwestern front, two firefighters were killed Sunday on Mount Gleason near the city of Acton.

"We ask for your understanding, for your patience as we move through this difficult time, and please, prayers for the families of our two brothers that we lost," county Deputy Fire Chief Mike Bryant said through tears at a Sunday press conference.

Fire Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino County, and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo "Arnie" Quinones, 35, of Palmdale, were killed in the crash, the department said in a statement. Authorities did not give a cause for the crash.

Hall was a 26-year veteran, and Quinones had been a county firefighter for eight years.

"Our hearts are heavy as we are tragically reminded of the sacrifices our firefighters and their families make daily to keep us safe," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

The blaze was only about 5 percent contained late Sunday and had scorched 71 square miles in the Angeles National Forest. Mandatory evacuations were in effect for neighborhoods in Glendale, Pasadena and other smoke-choked cities and towns north of Los Angeles. At least 18 homes were destroyed in the fire and firefighters expected to find many more, authorities said.

"Our neighbors sent us photos of all the other houses that are lost," said Beth Halaas, who lost her house in Big Tujunga Canyon, one of the many communities under mandatory evacuation. "We’ve heard as many as 30 houses burned."

On Mount Wilson, crews cleared brush and sprayed retardant in an attempt to ward off flames approaching the transmitters of more than 20 television stations, many radio stations and cell phone providers, said U.S. Forest Service Capt. Mike Dietrich.

Television stations said if the antennas burn broadcast signals would be affected but satellite and cable transmissions would not be.

Two giant telescopes and several multimillion-dollar university programs are housed in the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory. The complex of buildings is both a historic landmark and a thriving modern center for astronomy.

The fire has been growing steadily, doubling in size on Sunday. Dietrich said it was possible it would double in size yet again over the next few days.

A slight dip in temperatures was expected Monday, but temperatures in the 90s and low humidity would remain the norm.

The fire was the largest of many burning up and down California, including a blaze northeast of Sacramento that destroyed 60 structures, many of them homes in the town of Auburn. The fire had wiped out an entire cul-de-sac, leaving only smoldering ruins, a handful of chimneys and burnt cars.

Rick Lund, whose house is nearby but escaped the fire, stood at the end of the cul-de-sac of about 10 homes, watching firefighters attend to what once were the homes of friends and neighbors.

"It’s right there," he said, pointing to a house of his 11-year-old daughter’s close friend. "Or it was."

The fire had blackened 275 acres amid high winds and was 50 percent contained Sunday night, CalFire spokesman Daniel Berlant. The governor declared a state of emergency in the Sierra foothills area because of the fire, which began Sunday afternoon.

About 30 people waited anxiously at an evacuation center in the Rock Creek Elementary School, including Pam and Stephen Incerty.

"If there’s nothing there when we get back, we won’t rebuild," Stephen Incerty said of their home on five tree-covered acres of rolling hills. "There’d be no trees, just dirt."

In Mariposa County, a nearly 7-square-mile fire burned in Yosemite National Park and forced the evacuation of about 50 homes. The blaze was 50 percent contained Sunday, said park spokeswoman Vickie Mates. Two people suffered minor injuries, she said.

Hot, dry and windy conditions also helped fan a monthlong wildfire in rural Utah, where residents in the town of New Harmony were told to leave their homes as the blaze flared up over the weekend. The lightning-sparked fire has already destroyed three houses and blackened more than 12 square miles in the Pine Valley Wilderness area.