30 yr old Snohomish County man dies from swine flu (WA) + BONUS article...

[uppityperson]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009201836_webswineflu09m.html

A Snohomish County man has become the first person in Washington state to die from complications due to the swine flu, health officials announced today. The death is only the third in the U.S. from the flu; the other two were in Texas. Forty-two people have died from the flu in Mexico.

The Snohomish County man, who officials said was in his 30s, had an underlying heart condition. He became sick on April 30 and died Wednesday from what appears to be complications of swine-origin influenza (H1N1), officials with the state Department of Health said.

Officials would not release his name nor say where in Snohomish County he lived. The announcement came this evening at the state Department of Health's offices in Shoreline. "We're working with local and federal partners to track this outbreak," Secretary of Health Mary Selecky said in a news release. "And while most illnesses from this new flu strain have been fairly mild, we must remember that influenza claims about 36,000 lives every year nationwide. That's why we urge people to take this outbreak, and the seasonal flu we see every year, very seriously."

Earlier today, the Health Department announced that an additional 18 cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Washington, bringing the state's total to 101. The Department of Health said that another 19 cases are considered probable for swine flu....

BONUS article, VERY good article about swine flu, pandemics, possible predictions, how this is being dealt with (aside from media hysteria), etc...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2009200640_apmedswineflupivotalmoments.html

The most pivotal moments in the swine flu saga are yet to come. Will it sweep through impoverished Southern Hemisphere countries in the next few months? Will it roar back in the rest of the world in the fall? And who will be vaccinated if it does? In the weeks since swine flu grabbed international attention, and even years before that, some important actions have helped shape the course of this outbreak and the ways the world will handle future epidemics. It's not clear if this new swine flu strain is a brush fire, sparking up around the globe only to fizzle, or if it will worsen when the regular influenza season hits. No matter how this story ends, at the very least it has offered a real-world drill to find gaps in the playbook.

"We've been given an opportunity to take a look at this before it really got bad, and we need to," said Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, a prominent pandemic flu specialist. "We better damn well do it now because one day we are going to really be in it for more than a week. If it's not this virus, there will still be another one."

For this virus, the coming months will bring a series of big decisions: Do manufacturers start brewing millions of swine flu vaccine doses? Will they be stockpiled unless the new flu returns or given along with or soon after regular flu shots? Will rich countries share enough with the developing world? Who gets in line first - the younger people that this strain so far seems to target or the elderly who usually are flu's most vulnerable?

"You may only have one chance to get out ahead of it," Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press. "It's important for people to understand that all of these decisions will need to be made with incomplete science."...(much more, a very good article)