Flu victim's home community kept under wraps
More than a week went by between the Yukon's first potential case of swine flu and test results from a B.C. laboratory that confirmed it Monday.
More than a week went by between the Yukon's first potential case of swine flu and test results from a B.C. laboratory that confirmed it Monday.
That's what Brendan Hanley, the territory's medical health officer, said after the government today announced that the H1N1 influenza virus has arrived in the territory.
"It did take more than a week. It's really because there's so many people being tested, and it's a real pile-up (in the lab)," he said.
"Having the results for here wouldn't have made a big difference ...we suspected this was going to be a positive case."
A news release issued this morning describes the infected individual as an adult female with a travel history to Mexico, where the virus originated.
It goes on to say the woman was not hospitalized and has now fully recovered. Hanley was unwilling to offer much more detail.
"We're not giving the community of origin, but it was Yukoner, an adult female who did come back from Mexico with symptoms and decided just to get checked out," said Hanley. "She never did have severe symptoms."
The Yukon's top doctor added that between the test and positive results, the woman was asked to stay home, and health officials "(made) sure there were not other people affected in her family or her co-workers."
Hanley said naming the community could do more harm than good.
"If we named a particular community, it could potentially create alarm," he said.
He described the risk of swine flu presented to the general public as "no more a risk than any other types of influenza."
Hanley alone determines what kind of information to release with respect to communicable diseases and said his confidentiality policy in this instance of swine flu is in line with how he deals with tuberculosis.
Since April 21, Hanley has been in daily contact via conference call with officials from Canada's Public Health Agency, who confer regularly with the World Health Organization and Center for Disease Control.
"We don't know if this might morph into something else, so we're still maintaining a vigilance," he said.
"We don't know everything about it; we don't know that it's peaked, it might come back with a vengeance," he added.
Comments (3)
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Joel on May 13, 2009 at 8:38 am
Scary...like any other flu or cold or stomach bug or tainted food or alergies or meteors falling from the sky.
It is a new flu bug...something that comes along every year. If some of the children or elders come into contact with any virus they might not be strong enough to fight it. Life goes on and people will constantly get sick. Anyone remember how many people die in an average year from the various flu viruses...something like 70 000 worldwide. This one is not much different other than the media liked it.
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twila merrick on May 12, 2009 at 1:19 pm
my word on this,,,is i believe that the community should be alarmed!! we need to know,,this is very serious, if our young children were in contact with this or our elders they might not be strong enough to fight the virus,, this is a very scary thing that swine flu
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Francias Pillman on May 12, 2009 at 9:12 am
First it was sars. Then bird flu.Then mad cow. Now this.Next week it'll be polar bear flu. Congrats to the media for yet again crying wolf and creating a sense of panic, but its designed that way. FEAR FEAR.People do anything the tv tells them to do. With all the deaths caused by the medical industry why does anyone take notice when some fake alarms are sounded. Oh you guys magically care about peoples health now, yea right. Want to stop this fake pandemic, turn the tv off.