다케시 카사이 WHO 서태평양지역(한국, 중국, 일본, 호주, 뉴질랜드, 몽고, 프랑스령 폴리네시아 등 37개국) 자문관이 서태평양 지역의 돼지독감 사망자 352명 중에서 25%(다른 지역의 무병력자 사망 20~50% 범위) 가량이 당뇨나 심장병 등의 만성질환자가 아닌 건강한 사람(무병력자)이었다는 통계에 대해 우려를 표명했다는 소식입니다.
다케시 카사이 자문관은 바이러스 학자들이 제기하고 있는 유력한 가설 중 하나는 병력이 없는 환자의 체내에서 돼지독감 바이러스가 더욱 빨리 복제된다는 것이라고 얘기했습니다.
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WHO worries about swine flu deaths with no underlying illness
출처 : (AFP) Tue Sep 22, 12:13 pm ET
HONG KONG (AFP) – The World Health Organization said Tuesday it was worried that up to a quarter of the fatal swine flu cases in the Western Pacific were patients with no underlying medical condition.
By September 19, an estimated 25 percent of the 352 death cases reported in the region had no prior medical problems, the WHO announced at its Western Pacific annual conference in Hong Kong.
“That worries us very much. We are looking into it,” Takeshi Kasai, the organisation’s regional adviser on communicable disease surveillance and response, told the media on the sidelines of the conference.
In other regions the proportion of swine flu fatalities with no underlying medical condition ranged from 20 to 50 percent, he said.
Kasai said one of the more plausible hypotheses virologists had come up with was that the virus replicated more rapidly in those patients.
He said that the WHO was also concerned that young adults were dying of swine flu, while small children and elderly people tend to be the main groups that succumb to seasonal influenza.
The West Pacific region covers 37 countries and extends from China and Mongolia to Australia, New Zealand and French Polynesia.
