Facemasks Distributed as concern and urgency mounts on Swine Flu Pandemic

“Our concern has grown since yesterday in light of what we’ve learned since then,” said Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC, said during a conference call today with reporters. “This is something we’re worried about and taking very seriously. We are moving quickly, being very aggressive in our approach.”

The outbreak isn’t a pandemic, a concentrated outbreak across multiple countries, Cordova said. Mexico’s government has 1 million doses of antiviral medicine that can be distributed, he said. The government closed schools in Mexico City today and is handing out free facemasks. The deadline for filing taxes has been extended until May 31, he said.

SHOOT: They're calling this conglomeration of genetic fragments from swine, bird and human strains 'the biggest threat of a large-scale flu pandemic since the emergence of the H5N1'.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu struck hundreds people in Mexico City, California and Texas, raising the threat of pandemic. At least 68 died and more than 1,000 became sick with flu- like symptoms in the Mexico City region in the past month, Jose Cordova, Mexico’s Health Minister, told reporters today. The cause was confirmed as swine flu in 20 of the deaths so far, Cordova said. Of 14 samples tested from Mexico, half matched the swine flu reported in eight people in California and Texas, the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said today. Teams of disease sleuths have been sent to California and Texas to trace how the malady has spread, and the U.S. offered to send scientists to Mexico, the CDC said. President Barack Obama is being briefed, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters today.