The media have played up the A(H1N1) outbreak, but may yet come down with foot-in-mouth disease istockphoto.com

The A(H1N1) outbreak has been played up in the Polish media since it first appeared in Mexico and, following confirmation of Poland’s first case of the virus last Wednesday, health ministry officials have been battling to prevent widespread panic. Is the threat of a deadly pandemic in Poland now real, or is the virus less dangerous than originally thought?

Thankfully the spread of the much-feared A(H1N1) strain of influenza appeared to be flagging last week. Mexico’s Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova recently told a press conference that he believed the virus had already peaked, claiming, “The evolution of the epidemic is now in its declining phase.” The news, coming from an increasingly isolated country believed to be the epicenter of the outbreak, was indeed widely welcomed.

On the other hand, the US reported last week that the virus had spread to at least 40 states, and reports of it breaching other parts of the world continued. In Europe, the virus was gradually spreading, and Poland’s first case was confirmed by medical experts.

The carrier of the mutated A(H1N1) virus was a 58-year-old woman from Tarnobrzeg in southeastern Poland. “Halina M.” as she is known, apparently contracted the strain while in the United States. She flew back to Warsaw from New Jersey on May 2. Three days later she began feeling ill and was admitted to a hospital in Mielec. Confirmation of the A(H1N1) strain was announced on May 6.

Health Minister Ewa Kopacz told Dziennik that it had only been a question of time before the flu arrived. “We knew about this from the very beginning, when the virus appeared in Europe. With the current capabilities of the virus, it was bound to reach us.”

Vigilant response

Since the outbreak of the virus in Mexico, the news from the Polish Health Ministry has been encouraging, however. Following the World Health Organization’s decision to increase the pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5, Kopacz had emphasized Poland’s preparedness.
“Our laboratories are ready. We have a reserve supply of medicine. The emergency services are on standby 24 hours a day. We’re ready,” she told TVN 24 prior to an emergency summit of EU health ministers in Luxembourg.

The head of the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate, Andrzej Wojtyła, has several times assured that the emergency services were reacting quickly and cautiously to potential patients. He told the public that each case has been treated as a threat – isolated and handled by staff wearing protective gear – until a laboratory confirmed a negative result.

In the case of “Halina M.” all passengers and members of the flight crew on the same LOT flight as the infected patient were tracked down. They were to be closely monitored by doctors until May 9.