TEAM 1: PROMED MAIL FLU TRACKING

Team 1 is tracking the distribution of cases using PROMED MAIL (www.promedmail.org) and producing daily updates in the form of shapefiles that are summarized to a global map along with case numbers (when available).

RESEARCH METHODS

Locations for H1N1 are taken from the Promed website. The coordinates (latitude/longitude) are then entered into an Excel Spreadsheet. We decided to use coordinates and point data so if, and when, the information from the Promed website is accurate enough to city or county we can show the exact location. We then entered the confirmed case numbers in the attribute table in Arcmap. We did this so we can symbolize the case numbers in graduated symbols.

29 APRIL 2009 UPDATE (1507 PDT)

29 APRIL 2009 UPDATE NUMBER #2 (1300 PDT)

30 APRIL 2009 (PENDING GIS SUMMARY BY BLACKBURN)

1MAY 2009 (1843 PDT) – Summary drafted by Team 1 Leader – Kevin Mattson

Today's promedmail does not list any new cases. They talk about the 44 confirmed cases in NYC and give the following details on those victims:

"Median age of the patients was 15 years (range: 14-21 years).  31 (70 percent) of the 44 were female. 30 (68 percent) were non-Hispanic white; 7 (16 percent) were Hispanic; 2 (5 percent) were non-Hispanic black; and 5 (11 percent) were of other races. 4 patients reported travel outside NYC within the United States in the week before symptom onset, and an additional patient traveled to Aruba in the 7 days before symptom onset. None of the 44 patients reported recent travel to California, Texas, or Mexico."

They don't specify new cases today, but rather conclude with the outbreak totals so far:

1) 109 confirmed cases in the US with 1 death

2) 156 confirmed in Mexico with 9 deaths

3) 1 confirmed in Austria

4) 34 in Canada

5) 3 in Germany

6) 2 in Israel

7) 1 in the Netherlands

8) 3 in New Zealand

9) 13 in Spain

10) 1 in Switzerland

11) 8 in the UK

They have a good article about by Rubin Donis from the CDC about the genetics of it. He talks about its similarities to a strain that has been in midWestern pig farms for many years and also to a Eurasian strain. This info was also in the NY Tines article that Blackburn forwarded to us all today. Even with all this info nothing is conclusive it seems. Here is the conclusion of that article:

"[The question of the appearance of this virus in Mexico is unresolved], but the mixing probably did not occur in Mexico. The amazing thing is the hemagglutinins we are seeing in this strain are

a lonely branch that has been evolving somewhere and we didn't know about it... When you have so many changes, you don't know which ones are responsible."