What's in the web for family physicians - human swine flu

Alfred KY Tang 鄧權恩

Swine Flu Page by Infectious Diseases Control Training Centre, Hospital Authority
http://www3.ha.org.hk/idctc/swineflu/

The webpages on Human Swine Flu were launched in late April with the aim of providing comprehensive and latest information concerning Human Swine Influenza. They offered useful information such as the official press releases and news updates regarding the human swine flu. Clinical guidelines and protocols issued by Hospital Authority, audio-embedded Power Point presentations of lectures, and other training resources for healthcare workers are also available.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Divisions of HIV/AIDS Prevention, USA
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

UPMC Physician Resources, with their continuing medical education programmes, aim to allow medical professionals to improve their knowledge and skills and keep updated with the latest treatments and techniques. The programmes are in the form of case studies, newsletters, and videos. Contents are classified with specialty pages and additional CME programmes are added on a regular basis. The webcast library has good audiovisual quality, and with synchronized powerpoint slides. Titles are divided into 17 specialties with user-friendly searching capabilities.

University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine
http://www.deptmedicine.utoronto.ca/CEKTE/CWMGR.htm

Apart from general information on swine flu, the CDC webpages on H1N1 Flu offer audio and video resources on H1N1 Flu. Situation update with case counts, travel notices, press releases, clinician guidelines and patient guidelines are also included. Guidance for professionals, fact sheets, and public service announcements are also available. The weekly published MMWR, sometimes referred to as 'voices of CDC' (http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/weekcvol.html), has regular coverage on updates of H1N1 flu.

Virology Blog
http://www.virology.ws

The focus of the weblog is on viruses and viral disease. It is written by a professor in Microbiology of University of Columbia. A significant proportion of recent postings are on the virology aspects of the swine flu. Some of the recent topics include "Influenza hemagglutination inhibition assay", "US to redirect funding to study adjuvant for influenza vaccine", "Adults have cross-reactive antibodies to A/California/04/2009 (H1N1)".

Centre for Health Protection (CHP), Department of Health
http://www.chp.gov.hk/view_content.asp?lang=en&info_id=16615

The webpages on Human Swine Influenza from CHP offer latest situation updates including latest figures of confirmed cases, press releases, FAQs, prevention and treatment of human swine influenza. Information for specific groups, such as travelers, health professionals, school students, business and workplace are also available. There are also practical educational resources like health topics on human swine influenza, letters to doctors, guidelines, publications and statistics.

World Health Organization (WHO)
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

WHO is monitoring the global outbreaks, coordinating global responses to human cases of influenza A (H1N1) and giving advice on the corresponding threat of an influenza pandemic. Information on this page keeps the world updated on the evolving situation and provides access to technical guidelines for health professionals as well as information useful for the general public.

Influenza A H1N1 Infodesk
http://www3.hku.hk/facmed/h1n1/

The Faculty of Medicine of University of Hong Kong has launched a website entitled "Influenza A(H1N1) InfoDesk". In addition to basic information on Influenza A (H1N1), including its aetiology, epidemiology, clinical aspects, and preventive measures, the website also disseminates updated information on the latest developments and statistics of the epidemic.

H1N1 Influenza Centre, The New England Journal of Medicine
http://h1n1.nejm.org/

A webpage dedicated to H1N1 Influenza was put up by the New England Journal of Medicine. Apart from news update of H1N1 Influenza, the webpage offers advice to medical practitioners, surveillance updates, original research, research summaries and commentaries, together with publications and journal watch of H1N1 influenza.

Pandemic Flu
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

This is a one-stop access to information on H1N1 flu, avian flu and pandemic flu. It contains collective information from different U.S. governmental agencies on the issue. It answers questions like 'What is H1N1 (swine) flu?', 'What should I do if I get sick?', and Q&A's in the form of webcasts. The multimedia information dissemination renders the website both educational and user-friendly.

Swine Flu Updates from the DynaMed Clinical Summary
http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed/h1n1

In response to the recent global outbreak of Swine Influenza, DynaMed is offering clinical summary and information on Swine Influenza to health care professionals. The topics on Swine Influenza represent consolidated information from different sources enabling health care providers to stay updated with recommendations for monitoring, diagnosing, and treating patients with flu-like illnesses during this period.

Influenza Virus Resource (US National Center for Biotechnology Information)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genomes/FLU/SwineFlu.html

The most recent swine influenza A (H1N1) gene sequences can be found at this website. Data was obtained from the NIAID Influenza Genome Sequencing Project as well as from GenBank, combined with tools for flu sequence analysis and annotation. In addition, it lists links to other resources with flu sequences, related publications and general information about flu viruses.