HOUSTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The A/H1N1 flu death toll in the United State has reached 522 with hospitalizations of 7,983, according to the latest statistics released by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Friday.

    The CDC said that 45 more deaths have been reported in the past week, a big jump from the previous record of 477 released a week ago by the agency. Meanwhile, there have been 472 more patients of the new virus admitted to the hospitals in the past week, bringing the total number of the hospitalizations around the country to 7,983, compared with the previous record of 7,511.

    Since the outbreak of the A/H1N1 flu in late April, The CDC has reported on its website the latest development of the new virus every weekend including numbers of deaths and conformed and probable cases of the new flu virus. But beginning from July 24, the CDC has changed the reporting requirements for the A/H1N1 flu by local health jurisdictions.

    The new reporting requirements will track mainly hospitalized and fatal cases, the CDC said, adding that non-hospitalized case reporting is no longer needed at this stage of the pandemic.

    Instead of reporting confirmed and probable cases of A/H1N1 flu virus, the CDC has transitioned to using its traditional flu surveillance systems to track the progress of both A/H1N1 flu pandemic and seasonal flu.

    These systems work to determine when and where flu activity is occurring, track flu-related illness, determine what flu viruses are circulating, detect changes in flu viruses, and measure the impact of flu on hospitalizations and deaths around the country, the CDC explained.

    Despite the summer heat and humanity, the A/H1N1 flu has continued to spread in the country as a whole, with formidable increases of deaths in a number of states in recent weeks. California and Florida are two hardest-hit states in the past two months, both reporting the most deaths and hospitalizations at least for 4 weeks running.

    The California Department of Public Health has reported 11 more deaths and 296 more hospitalizations for the past week, bringing the death toll to 115 and the total numbers of hospitalizations to1353 in the most populous state since the new virus outbreak in late April.

    Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Health has reported 11 more deaths and 11 more hospitalizations for the past week, bringing the total number of A/H1N1 deaths to 59 and the hospitalizations to 577 in the southeast state.

    The CDC officials and experts are urging people to be well-prepared for the pandemic declared by World Health Organization in June. They believe the A/H1N1 flu will shape up as a category 2 pandemic similar to the 1957 Asian flu outbreak in the fall and winter.

    The federal and state officials are preparing for massive A/H1N1 flu immunizations, starting with school children when they return school next week.

Special Report:  World Tackles A/H1N1 Flu