Friday July 24 2009

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rt. Dr Caryn Collins, an emergency room doctor at Life Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Pinelands, was one of three doctors who saw Wilson after he returned to Cape Town and tried to find information about his swine flu test results. “Everyone I spoke to (at the Gauteng Department of Health and NICD) was so nonchalant,” Collins said. “There was complete apathy.

This person could have died and no one did anything about it. “He had apparently had swabs taken, (but) they obviously took no care of the swabs. We don’t know how many others’ cases have gone missing.” Yasmin Isaacs, a receptionist at Pinelands Medicross, who also tried to find out Wilson’s swine flu results, agreed that the NICD was unreceptive. After his condition improved close to a week after returning to South Africa and he was released from the hospital, Wilson received an SMS from Terry Marshall at the NICD. The SMS read: “Hi Mr Wilson. We are unable to track your specimen for influenza testing. It has not reached the NICD.” The NICD’s director of virology, Dr Adrian Puren, said protocols were in place to ensure specimens could be traced. He said he could not comment on what had gone wrong in Wilson’s case as no tests had been delivered by the Gauteng Department of Health and no official complaint had been filed. He said he hoped forms had been completed when the swabs were taken at O R Tambo Airport, to make sure the specimens could be traced. It was important that doctors file complaints in cases such as this, he said. “If there was a problem, we need to know – were the appropri-

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ate channels utilised to ensure the patient was adequately cared for? From our perspective, that’s very, very key,” he said. A Gauteng Department of Health spokesman referred the Cape Argus to the national Department of Health, which he said would know about operations at O R Tambo. Health Department spokesman Fidel Hadebe was given the information about Wilson’s case and said he would look into the matter. Asked why Wilson would not have been quarantined at O R Tambo, Hadebe said this was not required under World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on preventing the virus’s spread. Hadebe said the health officials at the airport were “trained and highly qualified”. “They make a decision on the info that they have: whether to keep the person or send them to the nearest hospital. “We don’t want to create a situation where people’s lives are unreasonably disrupted.” Wilson said his being noticed by the thermal scanners at O R Tambo had been encouraging. “Everything seemed to have been in place and done correctly. And then it all fell apart.” Collins said she was upset with the system’s failure in Wilson’s case, regardless of whether he had swine flu. As of Wednesday, when the WHO’s Regional Office for Africa released its latest statistics, there had been 119 reported cases of swine flu and no deaths in South Africa. [email protected]

FRESH

Scientists in dark over HIV and H1N1 MICHELLE PIETERSEN Staff Reporter

THERE is a “tremendous amount of mystery” surrounding the swine flu pandemic, and scientists are still unsure of how the H1N1 virus responsible for this flu will react in individuals with HIV/Aids, says a distinguished South African medical scientist. Professor Barry Schoub, executive director for the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, was speaking at a Charles Darwin lecture series event at the University of Cape Town’s New Learning Centre in Observatory last night. Schoub said he could not elaborate on how the H1N1 and HIV viruses would react if combined. “We really can’t comment. We

don’t know how it (the H1N1 virus) will behave in HIV/Aids individuals. “Research is being collected, and detailed characteristics are being assembled.” Schoub said that although a significant amount of information about the H1N1 virus had been collected during a short period, there were still many questions that needed to be answered. “This is a public health problem, and all we know is that the virus has the power to adapt to its host, and its changes.” He also said that there were a number of possibilities as to how the pandemic would pan out. At best, it would “most likely” replace the seasonal flu virus. “The most likely view is that what we are seeing now is that

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the H1N1 will replace the seasonal flu. Or maybe that’s what we want it to. “Because this is a new virus and the first pandemic in 40 years, there is a certain amount of unpredictability surrounding it,” he said. In a worst-case scenario, the current outbreak of influenza could possibly be the calm before the storm, he warned. The first outbreak of H1N1 virus had lasted for 10 to 12 weeks – similar to the 1918 pandemic. Then, six months after the first outbreak, a second extremely virulent “wave” of the flu had killed between 50 and 100 million people world-wide. “At this stage the jury is still out – it’s early days. We have to keep a watchful eye,” said Schoub.

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