SHOOT: Mexico saw 15 flu outbreaks - if Mexican flu makes its way into the Southern hemisphere there will likely be as many outbreaks here too, with plenty of opportunity for trouble especially against Africa's tinderbox communities.
YAHOO: "The virus has been circulating for over a month in a city of 20 million of high population density. It could have been much worse," agreed CDC epidemiologist Marc-Alain Widdowson.
The global caseload is 717 and growing — the vast majority in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.
Lopez-Gatell said that even before the swine flu outbreak, Mexican authorities had been monitoring a higher-than-usual number of flu cases and an unusual phenomenon in which otherwise healthy young adults were falling ill with pneumonia in greater numbers. There had been 15 flu outbreaks in this year's flu season, as opposed to the 5 or 6 that Mexico normally sees.
"At this point it's important that all countries have access to antivirals," said Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO's global alert and response director.
The WHO has decided not to raise its alert to a full pandemic, since the virus has yet to cause sustained transmission outside North America. But Ryan warned against complacency.
"These viruses mutate, these viruses changes, these viruses can further reassort with other genetic material, with other viruses. So it would be imprudent at this point to take too much reassurance" from signs the virus is weaker than feared.
"We have seen times where things appear to be getting better and then get worse again," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the U.S. agency's interim science and public health deputy director. "I think in Mexico we may be holding our breath for sometime
"This is a new strain of the flu virus, and because we haven't developed an immunity to it, it has more potential to cause us harm," Obama said. |
No comments:
Post a Comment