Three Swiss deaths dramatize swine flu impact

The swine flu’s potentially deadly impact hit home in Switzerland this week as a third person in the country died from the H1N1 virus.

A 46-year-old Zurich woman succumbed on Thursday morning from heart problems after she first experienced symptoms of the flu on November 9. The woman had tested positive for HIV, the AIDS virus.

Her death came a day after a 54-year-old woman suffering from diabetes died in a Winterthur hospital after being admitted for emergency treatment for the swine flu four days earlier.

A 4 ½-year-old baby in Basel was the first Swiss victim of the contagious flu last week, just as a nation-wide vaccination campaign is ramping up.

The H1NI virus first surfaced in Switzerland in the spring as part of a global pandemic traced initially to Mexico.

The virus has claimed the lives of more than 6,250 people worldwide and infected more than half a million others, according to the World Health Organization.

In its latest global report, WHO said H1N1 was steady or declining in many parts of the world, including the Americas, where its impact has been most severely felt.

But in Europe, the organization said the swine flu contagion “continues to intensify” in many countries.

A recent spike in cases in the Ukraine led to concerns that the virus might be mutating, although initial research has concluded that is not the case.

WHO’s region office for Europe said last week that 78,000 cases of H1N1 have been reported in the region, leading to at least 300 deaths.

In this context, the impact of the flu on Switzerland has been relatively limited, although the number of confirmed cases in the country tripled to 4,500 last week from the previous week as the traditional flu season got under way.

Patrick Mathys, of the federal public health department, told a press conference in Bern on Thursday that 85 people have hospitalized for H1N1, including 16 people in intensive care wards.

Mathys said Switzerland has access to two million doses of vaccine against the flu, enough to cover more than a quarter of the population.

Bern said vaccinations will be first offered starting on Monday to health staff, “risk groups” and people living with people who have a high chance of suffering medical complications.

More doses of the free vaccine will be available next week extending the coverage to half the population, Mathys said.

Swissmedic, the Swiss agency for therapeutic products, has authorized three kinds of vaccine, only developed within recent weeks.

On Thursday, the agency approved Pandemrix, a product from British-based pharmacy company GlaxoSmithKline. It has already approved the Focetria and Celtura vaccines developed by Basel-based Novartis.

Swissmedic issued a statement urging patients who suffer from “severe or unusual” side effects after receiving such vaccinations to contact their doctors or pharmacists.

The agency is providing medical practitioners with an online system to report suspected undesirable effects in order to monitor the safety of the vaccines.

The federal government has set up a website www.pandemia.ch, which recommends vaccination as “the most efficient method of protecting yourself from flu.”

Although vaccination against H1N1 is not mandatory “it prepares the immune system to recognize the virus in the event of infection and enables it to ward off an infection,” the website says.

“For at-risk groups, the risk of illness and its associated complications can be reduced considerably.”

Vaccination is particularly recommended for chronically ill patients, infants between the ages of six months and two years and pregnant women in or past the second trimester, as well as those who have recently given birth.

The government said vaccines are not recommended for children under six months, patients with “febrile diseases”and pregnant women in the first trimsester.

Vaccination is also not advised for people who are allergic to egg protein, those who have previously had strong allergic reactions to flu vaccines and patients taking anti-coagulent medicines.

The swine flu has been likened to regular seasonal flu, which annually kills 1,000 people in Switzerland, so more medical experts expect more H1N1 deaths will occur.

For many people, however, the swine flu symptoms are mild, although the virus is more contagious than regular flu.

In the case of the 54-year-old woman who died in Winterthur, Urs Rüegg cantonal spokesman for the Zurich cantonal health department said that, given her diabetes and existing pulmonary complications, she would have also died from regular flu.