2009 H1N1 Influenza and Experience in Three Critical Care Units

Teke, Turgut; Coskun, Ramazan; Sungur, Murat; Guven, Muhammed; Bekci, Taha T; Maden, Emin; Alp, Emine; Doganay, Mehmet; Erayman, Ibrahim; Uzun, Kursat

In 2009, cases of influenza like illness were first reported in Mexico on March 18; the outbreak was subsequently confirmed as H1N1 influenza. A Novel H1N1 swine origin influenza virus has led to a worldwide pandemic (1) . In the affected patients, a novel swine origin influenza A (H1N1) virus (S-OIV) with molecular features of North American and Eur-asian swine, avian, and human influenza viruses were isolated (2) . In the same month, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the global spread of this virus as a public health event of international concern. After documentation of human to human transmission of the virus in at least three countries of two WHO regions, the WHO raised the pandemic level to 6 (3). It has spread very rapidly since the first cases were diagnosed in Mexico with the subsequent spread of the virus throughout Europe during the winter season. The H1N1 2009 influenza pandemic (pH1N1) has resulted in over 15921 deaths worldwide more than 212 countries as of 14 February 2010 (4) . Turkey reported its first laboratory-confirmed case of influenza A (H1N1) on 16 May 2009, becoming the eighteenth country in the WHO European region to do so, and a second case on 17 May 2009 (5) .