The break of the german machine

The World Health Organization said Thursday that the E. coli bacteria responsible for a deadly outbreak that has left 18 dead and sickened hundreds in Europe is a new strain that has never been seen before. Preliminary genetic sequencing suggests the strain is a mutant form of two different E. coli bacteria, with lethal genes that could explain why the Europe-wide outbreak appears to be so massive and dangerous, the agency said. Hilde Kruse, a food safety expert at the WHO, told The Associated Press that “this is a unique strain that has never been isolated from patients before.”

Fumadores passivos

Around one in a hundred deaths worldwide is due to passive smoking, which kills an estimated 600,000 people a year, World Health Organization (WHO) researchers said on Friday.

In the first study to assess the global impact of second-hand smoke, WHO experts found that children are more heavily exposed to second-hand smoke than any other age-group, and around 165,000 of them a year die because of it. "Two-thirds of these deaths occur in Africa and south Asia," the researchers, led by Annette Pruss-Ustun of the WHO in Geneva, wrote in their study.

Children's exposure to second-hand smoke is most likely to happen at home, and the double blow of infectious diseases and tobacco "seems to be a deadly combination for children in these regions," they said. Commenting on the findings in the Lancet journal, Heather Wipfli and Jonathan Samet from the University of Southern California said policymakers try to motivate families to stop smoking in the home. "In some countries, smokefree homes are becoming the norm, but far from universally," they wrote.

Alô, Drs. Jorge e George?

H1N1 swine flu has not peaked yet but seems to be waning in Canada and the United States, signaling that the end of the pandemic may be on the horizon, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. The WHO and its advisory committees are gathering scientific data to assess the possible end of the pandemic, Fukuda said, telling journalists: "I anticipate that at least sometime in 2010 we will be discussing this in formal settings, in more concentrated ways."

Post Scriptum: quem irá ficar com as vacinas adquiridas pelo Estado português, mas que não foram utilizadas? E para quê?

H1N1 em alerta máximo?

Há algo de estranho por detrás do "alerta 6" da OMS, relativo à pandemia da gripe H1N1. Nos últimos dados sobre a doença da OMS, verificamos que: 1) há 28.774 casos a nível global; 2) há 144 mortos confirmados.

Justificarão estes dados, um "alerta 6" da OMS? Não haverá situações de saúde pública bem mais dramáticas e dolorosas? A Sida/Aids? A tuberculose? O dengue? A cólera?

Cada vez desconfiamos mais destes órgãos globais! A quem reportarão estes especialistas da OMS?

O que estará por detrás desta antevisão?

The global swine flu threat is receding, but it could return in a far more deadly form in the fall. The warning was given Monday by Dr. Margaret Chan, head of the 193-nation World Health Organization.

That could cause a lethally dangerous global health problem on a comparable scale to the 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic that eventually infected more than 500 million people -- more than one-quarter of the human race -- and killed 10 percent of them. That death toll of 50 million was more than five times the total fatalities of World War I. The epidemic killed more Americans than died in World War I and World II combined.

Gostamos de viver num mundo organizado e que tente antecipar calamidades. Mas, isto parece-nos astrologia. Pior, este tipo de ambiente mediático pode ter outro tipo de objectivos, que são históricamente muito perigosos.

Gripe A ou a Teoria da Conspiração

Sem espanto lemos isto: The head of the World Health Organisation hit back at critics who have accused it of an over-reaction to the swine flu crisis warning that it may return ”with a vengeance” in the months ahead.

Ou seja, a Dra. Margaret Chan está a ser acusada de mais papista do que o Papa, ou se quiserem de overreacting. Mas, será que a Dra. Chan está mesmo a ser exagerada? Vejamos os impactos do swine flu, ou se quiserem da Gripe A, até este momento:

• As of 0600 GMT, 3 May 2009, 17 countries have officially reported 787 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection.
• Mexico has reported 506 confirmed human cases of infection, including 19 deaths.
• The United States Government has reported 160 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.
• The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Austria (1), Canada (70), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), France (2), Germany (6), Ireland (1), Israel (3), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (4), Republic of Korea (1), Spain (13), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (15).

Ou seja, será que não estamos perante uma mega-operação mediática, para mera distração de vários outros assuntos? Será que o ébola ou a tuberculose não causarão mais mortes e mais doentes, do que a Gripe A?

Não queremos ser desconfiados. Queremos ser apenas atentos!