Swine flu number of new infections is increasing

Swine flu: number of new infections rises due to impending flu epidemic

01/06/2011

The swine flu is expanding. After two deaths were reported from the University Hospital in Göttingen, persons in Leipzig, Kiel and Düsseldorf with H1N1 infection have now been admitted to intensive care in the hospital. In addition, other cases come to the public, which occurred at the end of last year. For example, in Heidelberg at the end of December, a woman infected with the swine flu virus died, but only after the death of the patient, the H1N1 infection was detected, said the State Health Office Baden-Württemberg.

The number of swine flu infections is increasing as the seasonal flu epidemic increases, with new swine flu cases reported from four states. All previous hospitalizations were required for patients classified by the health authorities as so-called high-risk patients. Thus, the 25-year-old patient in Leipzig is severely overweight and the other patients in Kiel and Dusseldorf suffer from significant pre-existing conditions, as the local clinics announced. The late December in Heidelberg deceased woman had suffered from significant pre-existing conditions, as the State Health Office confirmed.

Three patients are treated in the hospital
The condition of all three patients, who are currently still hospitalized because of the swine flu in the hospital, was still critical, according to the information of the treating physicians. The patients would be treated under the strictest isolation, in order to avoid a further spread of the swine flu pathogen as far as possible. In addition, Professor Dieter Häussinger, head of the hospital for infectiology in Dusseldorf, advises all high-risk patients, such as the chronically ill, pregnant women, health care workers and persons over the age of 60 years to the flu vaccine. These protect not only from the usual influenza strains but also from the swine flu virus, so that no special vaccination is needed, said the expert. Professor Häussinger is sensitized because in the past week several patients who were infected with the H1N1 pathogen had to be treated as outpatients in Dusseldorf. But many Germans still hesitate and do not know if they should be vaccinated. Therefore, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia has introduced a hotline to answer those affected answers to the most common questions about a flu vaccine.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) also advises urgently to the flu vaccine, because „we are at the beginning of a flu epidemic“, as the spokeswoman of the RKI, Susanne Glasmacher explained. After a flu vaccination, it takes about two weeks until the full protection is set up, but this is still in time for the expected peak of this year's flu epidemic in late January / early February.

Lung failure in swine flu patients
The 25-year-old patient in Leipzig was, however, connected to an artificial lung to ensure the oxygen supply, as the director of the Institute of Virology of the University Hospital Leipzig, Uwe Gerd Liebert announced. How the patient has been infected is so far completely unclear. „About every second infected person does not even get sick“, so that the infection routes are sometimes extremely difficult to understand. The 45-year-old woman from Neumünster, who is being treated in Kiel, came to the clinic because of respiratory failure, although she probably got infected with her son. In this case, the swine flu had run but significantly harmless, while the woman with acute lung injury was first admitted to the local hospital and then directly in the intensive care unit of the University Hospital Kiel, according to the head of the local health department, Angelika Barth, opposite the „Flensburger Tageblatt“. (Fp)

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