30 COUNTRIES CONFIRM A/H1N1 CASES

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.05.2009 23:22 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The World Health Organization (WHO) Monday said
that 4,694 cases of the new influenza A/H1N1 infection, including 53
deaths, were confirmed in 30 countries.

Mexico had 48 deaths from 1,626 laboratory-confirmed human cases of
infection. The US had 2,532 infections, including three deaths and
Canada reported 284 cases, with one death. Costa Rica was hit with
eight instances of the virus, including one death.

In Europe, Spain was most affected, with 95 cases of what is also
known as swine flu, and Britain had 47 infections, the health agency
said on its Website.

Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s head of health security, could not say how
the virus would act in Europe.

"It is hard to know what will happen in Europe," he said, adding
that so far nearly all cases in the continent were travel related,
meaning people brought the virus back with them from trips abroad.

Similarly, he said the organization was still trying to understand
the overall nature of the new virus. Pinning down the severity of the
disease was also difficult as there was no quantitative scientific
definition of the term.

"Severity is not a simple issue," he said, adding later, "there is
no epidemiological definition of severity."

The WHO was trying to strike a balance between the level of concern
caused to populations and the need to stay alert, Fukuda said about
the warning system in use.

Currently, the agency has its influenza alert status at phase 5,
just one below the highest possible, though this only tracks the
geographic spread and not other aspects of the disease.