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Flu Outbreak Declared a Pandemic
posted:2 HOURS 22 MINUTES AGO | SOURCE
filed under: Health News, World News
The World Health Organization declares a swine flu pandemic, the first official global flu outbreak in 41 years, as the worldwide total of cases nears 30,000. "The virus is now unstoppable," says WHO chief Margaret Chan.
FRANK JORDANS, AP [Complete Article HERE]
GENEVA (June 11) — [...]
The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientific confirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quickly circling the globe. WHO will now ask drug makers to speed up production of a swine flu vaccine. The declaration will also prompt governments to devote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.
WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the announcement Thursday after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts. Chan said she was moving the world to phase 6 — the agency's highest alert level — which means a pandemic, or global epidemic, is under way.
"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," Chan told reporters. "The (swine flu) virus is now unstoppable."
On Thursday, WHO said 74 countries had reported 28,774 cases of swine flu, including 144 deaths. Chan described the virus as "moderate." According to WHO's pandemic criteria, a global outbreak has begun when a new flu virus begins spreading in two world regions.
The agency has stressed that most cases are mild and require no treatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections could overwhelm hospitals and health authorities — especially in poorer countries.
Still, about half of the people who have died from swine flu were previously young and healthy — people who are not usually susceptible to flu. Swine flu is also crowding out regular flu viruses. Both features are typical of pandemic flu viruses.
The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million people. Ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.
SOURCE; WHO (WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION) continued below...
New Virus Is Not Swine Flu Says Paris-Based Health Group
Posted by TSRN on April 29th, 2009 | Categorized as Breaking News, Conspiracy, Need To Know | Tagged as New Virus Is Not Swine Flu Says Paris-Based Health Group
The virus currently circulating in Mexico and the United States and which has killed at least 20 people is not swine flu, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said Monday. (04-27-2009)
“The virus has not been isolated in animals to date. Therefore, it is not justified to name this disease swine flu,” the OIE said in a press statement.
The virus “includes in its characteristics swine, avian and human virus components,” the OIE said, and urged that it be called “North American influenza,” after its geographic origin.
The OIE said it was “urgent” that scientific research be carried out to determine the susceptibility of animals to what it said was a “new virus.”
If animals were susceptible, “virus circulation could worsen the regional and global situation for public health,” the organization said.
Swine flu is also continuing to spread during the start of summer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappear with warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.
After Thursday's meeting, Chan said the experts agreed there was wider spread of swine flu than what was being reported.
[...]
WHO said it was now recommending that flu vaccine makers start making swine flu vaccine. Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC said they could start large-scale production of pandemic vaccine in July but that it would take several months before large quantities would be available.
Many health experts say WHO's pandemic declaration could have come weeks earlier but the agency became bogged down by politics. In May, several countries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it would cause social and economic turmoil.
[...]
Chile has the most swine flu cases in South America, and the southern hemisphere is moving into its winter flu season.
The U.S. government has already taken steps like increasing availability of flu-fighting medicines and authorizing $1 billion for the development of a new vaccine against the novel virus. In addition, new cases seem to be declining in many parts of the country, U.S. health officials say, as North America moves out of its traditional winter flu season.
Still, New York City reported three more swine flu deaths Thursday, including one child under two years.
In Mexico, where the epidemic was first detected, the outbreak peaked in April. Mexico now has less than 30 cases reported a day, down from an average of 300, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova told The Associated Press. Mexico has confirmed 6,337 cases, including 108 deaths.
[...]
Many experts said the declaration of a pandemic did not mean the virus was getting deadlier.
"People might imagine a virus is now going to rush in and kill everyone," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bart's and Royal London Hospital. "That's not going to
happen."But Oxford said the swine flu virus might evolve into a more dangerous strain in the future. "That is always a possibility with influenza viruses," he said. "We have to watch very carefully to see what this virus does."
(AP Medical writers Maria Cheng reported from London and Michael Stobbe reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Michael E. Miller in Mexico City, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Vincente L. Panetta in Buenos Aires and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva also contributed to this report. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.)
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