I personally will never forget April 24, 2009. I was on a conference call at 5:00am Pacific Time with an east coast client and we were well into the planning of a pandemic conference for the transportation industry. He started the call by asking me, “Regina, what the hell is going on in Mexico???…I am hearing about this widespread respiratory illness and people wearing masks in the streets?!?!” Thank goodness for the internet as I [...]
H1N1 (Swine Flu): An Uptick in the Number of Cases in the South
No, contrary to popular thought, the H1N1 swine flu virus has not left the country. It is alive and well and is still circulating in the United States albeit in much lower numbers than we have seen since April 2009 and much lower than our usual seasonal flu this time of year. However, having said that, health officials have noted a troubling uptick in the number of cases in several southeastern states, particularly Georgia, in [...]
H1N1 (Swine Flu): Clean Hands, No Scrubbing…How Cool Is That?!?!?!
Healthcare workers often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day — and may need a minute or more to do the process right, by scrubbing with soap and water. But now there are new devices that could reduce the task to just four seconds, cleaning even hard-to-reach areas under fingernails! Pretty impressive! The technology is being developed in several laboratories around the world. One of the prototype creators says the plasma quickly [...]
H1N1 (Swine Flu): Myocarditis Associated With Pandemic H1N1 Virus in Children
A highly scientific and well-written and documented paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology reported an unusual complication of H1N1 in children. Acute myocarditis is a well-recognized, however rare, manifestation of numerous viral infections with a broad spectrum of symptoms and clinical features. Fulminant myocarditis may present with fatal arrhythmias and blocks, and/or varying degrees of cardiogenic shock. The prevalence of myocardial involvement in influenza infection ranges from 0 to 11% depending [...]
