Earlier this week we told you about the strain of influenza that has caused one death in Belize, while three other persons are under observation for acute respiratory distress at the KHMH.
On Tuesday a sample from the one victim was sent to CARPHA, the regional testing authority in Trinidad and it was expected back today. But when Monica Bodden caught up with the Director Of Health Services in Belize City this afternoon, he said no results were in just yet, but they do know - in a very broad sense - what they are looking at:..
Dr. Michael Pitts, Director Of Health Services
"We haven't gotten back the confirmatory test from CARPHA as yet, we are still waiting. Perhaps I might get that tonight or tomorrow but we do have preliminary testing that we were able to do here and out of the group of people that we were concerned with - we have a mixed pattern and we are seeing some group A influenza, some group B flu viruses. We see a group that we called Rhinoviruses, we see a group that we called Adenoviruses. After all of that said, those are the type of things that are tend to caused upper respiratory tract illnesses and flu like illnesses in the general population. We haven't able to confirm any of the worrisome viruses as yet."
"Right now I am saying the group of viruses that we have by the initial screen is a little comforting and the fact that those who have been having severe illnesses have what we called the premorbid (pre-existing condition) and those are the people we have to be careful with."
"What we note though a lot of flu like illnesses, there are certain people who are particular at risks to have severe symptoms and those people might be diabetics, people who have heart disease - people who are immune suppress for different reasons. Those are the people we think we have to be very careful with. The advice really is for those people if they have flu like symptoms, go to your doctor early."
"Of course I must say the elderly, you have your grandparents and so on; take special care with them and children under 5, have an extra eye out for them and we should work through this."
Tamiflu - which is used to treat h1n1 is currently available in Belize.
H1N1 was detected in Belize from last year, and authorities are hoping that the case that has tested positive for an "A" virus will be just that. There is some mild anxiety because other, more serious influenza strains - which are also A- type viruses - such as h5n1 and h7n1 have been showing up in Canada and China. We'll have an update on Monday.
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