BEIJING, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed
A/H1N1 flu cases continued to rise worldwide, especially in the United States,
while the World Health Organization (WHO) has left its alert level unchanged.
According to the latest figures, over 3,000 cases
have now been confirmed in 27 countries around the world.
The confirmed A/H1N1 flu cases in the United States
rose sharply on Friday to 1,639 in 43 of its 50 states, including two deaths,
overtaking Mexico as the country having the most confirmed cases in the world.
The update registered a sharp increase from the case
count on Thursday when confirmed cases were 896, according to the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
However, the jump "does not reflect a speed-up of the
epidemic," said Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the CDC. The number of cases may
jump quickly day to day as a backlog of likely cases need to be confirmed
through extra testing, he said.
About 3.5 percent of the cases have been sick enough
to be admitted to hospitals and health officials say the rate will continue to
fall as more screening is done in the community.
U.S. President Barack Obama Friday urged Americans to
take persistent precaution on the A/H1N1 flu, even though he said the virus was
not as virulent as people first feared.
"I want to assure everybody that we're seeing that
the virus may not have been as virulent as we at first feared," Obama told a
town-hall style meeting with members of Hispanic communities at the White House.
"But we're not out of the woods yet. We still have to
take precautions," he said.
The WHO kept its global pandemic alert level at five
out of six on Friday because the new H1N1 virus was not spreading rapidly
outside North America.
The total number of deaths from A/H1N1 flu in Mexico
rose to 45,while the number of infected people in the country reached 1,364, the
Mexican Health Ministry (SSA) said on Friday.
Statistics show the epidemic is waning in the
country. Among the deaths so far reported, 40 occurred before April 23, while
the rest occurred after that date.
Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed A/H1N1 flu
cases in Canada has risen to 242, with 28 new cases confirmed on Friday,
according to the latest figures from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Health authorities also confirmed Friday that a
40-year-old woman with A/H1N1 flu had died in Canada, the first such death in
the country.
Andre Corriveau, chief medical officer of health in
Alberta province, said that the woman had serious underlying medical conditions
when she died on April 28. At that time doctors did notknow she had H1N1 flu.
Brazil's health authorities confirmed two more cases
of A/H1N1 flu on Friday, including the first contagion in the country, bringing
the total number of infection cases to six.
On Saturday, an Australian woman tested positive for
the new strain of flu, the first confirmed case in the country,
AustralianAssociated Press quoted Queensland state's chief medical officer as
saying.
Three Japanese were also confirmed to have been
infected with the new A/H1N1 flu, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and
Welfare said Saturday. They became the first confirmed cases of the new flu in
Japan.
Fourteen new cases of A/H1N1 flu have been confirmed
in Europe within the past 24 hours, health officials said Friday.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and
Control (ECDC) said seven new cases were reported Friday in Spain, three in
France, two in Britain, and one each in Germany and the Netherlands.
The total number of confirmed cases of the A/H1N1 flu
virus in the European Union and the European Free Trade Association blocs now
stands at 156, the ECDC said in its daily update.
Israel on Friday confirmed the seventh H1N1 case in
the country. The woman who was infected with the flu virus during her stay in
the United States has recovered from the flu, according tolocal news service
Ynet.
In Hong Kong, a Mexican A/H1N1 patient was discharged
from a local hospital on Friday evening, the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region (HKSAR) government said.
Quarantine also ended on Friday at a local hotel
where the patient, the first such case in Asia, had stayed briefly after
arriving in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, in the Thai capital of Bangkok, health
ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations or
ASEAN,plus China, Japan and South Korea, concluded a special meeting on the flu
outbreak.
The ministers pledged to raise drug stockpiles, share
essentialinformation and build rapid response teams to tackle what they called
an "imminent health threat" to the region.
WHO's tally of A/H1N1 influenza cases
rises to 2,500
GENEVA, May 8
(Xinhua) -- Twenty-five countries have officially reported 2,500
laboratory-confirmed human A/H1N1 influenza cases as of 16:00 GMT on Friday, the
World Health Organization (WHO) said in a latest update.
Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, has reported 1,204
laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection, including 44 deaths. The United
States has reported 896 laboratory-confirmed human cases, including two
deaths. Full story
CDC confirms 1,639 cases of A/H1N1
flue in 43 U.S. states
WASHINGTON, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The cases of the A/H1N1 flu in the United States
have increased to 1,639 in 43 states, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.
The update registered a sharp increase from the case count
on Thursday when confirmed cases were 896. Full story
