The results of 23 more tests for swine flu have come back from Trinidad and they are all negative! So that’s a total of 38 test results that have all come back negative; 23 of those were for suspected cases. The good news was announced at a Ministry of Health press conference today where officials said they will be relaxing the restriction on public gatherings.

Dr. Michael Pitts, Director of Health Services
“To date we have still not confirmed any case of H1N1 influenza A in Belize which is a very good milestone. We have sent out 39 samples of which 21 were suspected and they all came back negative. We had 14 negative but they were for other influenza like illnesses and we had three among those that didn’t fit. We have three outstanding tests so we have now reconciled all the tests that we took from the 2nd of May right through until the 6th of May and now the only tests that we have outstanding for are those that we took yesterday and we sent three to CAREC yesterday but it is fairly good news that they are all negative for H1N1.

So while we are comforted to know that there is some levelling off, we still need to be cautious because there can be rebound and in fact it is usually in the second phase with novel viruses that you see most of the major impact. So what I think has happened in Belize is that we were very strategic to act quickly in the early phase of this disease and I think we should continue to see benefits from that response.

We’ve been saying or we are saying to the population listen, we have to maintain a certain level of alert. We need to maintain the hygienic practice, the cough etiquette, we need to still be sensible, we shouldn’t be making any unessential travel to any area where this disease is or where cases have been reported and if we have any influenza illness, please report to your health facility, stay away from school, stay away from work.

We had made some decisions about mass gatherings and initially we started out with major mass gatherings and over the last 46 hours we tried to define mass gatherings and went with smaller groups. Now we’re saying that listen: because of how the disease has progressed that we may allow people to congregate but let’s just be sensible. If you are ill don’t go into an area where you see a lot of people and protect the next citizen beside you. If you are on a bus please cover if you are coughing and so on and so forth. So what it means now is that we can begin to see an improvement back to a regular normal activity.

Remember though that this disease is fairly dynamic and if we see a change in another direction we’ll have to come back to you all to say let’s adjust. But in a sense the natural history of the disease, the new understanding has provided some comfort and some understanding.”

Dr. Paul Edwards, Focal Point
“One of the critical factors is that it is less severe now than we had originally thought and that is why our response has been that way and why today the Director of Health Services is saying that we are taking those processes towards returning back to normalcy.”

Jules Vasquez,
While yes vigilance needs to be maintained, it is just a flu – we get that all the time.

Dr. Michael Pitts,
“The thing is you have just a flu right. Now in that sense but this flu has no vaccine. Usually what happens in the first wave you have some processes happening with the virus that it comes back. Now with poor health immunity and you have this new wave, when and usually most of the mortality problems occur in the second wave. So that is the thing that you bear in mind.”

Dr. Beverly Barnett, PAHO/WHO Rep.
“Yes it seem to be mild and so on but we don’t know, because it is new, whether it is going to mutate, whether it is going to change in some way and become virulent. So this is why we just have to keep an eye on things because we just don’t know yet.”

Again, that second wave, if it does occur, would – according to projections – surge in September. Pitts confirmed that officially two prescriptions for tamiflu were given to two suspected cases, both those persons tested negative.