Swine Flu Update: WHO makes 'rough' estimate: 2 billion will eventually be infected

MSNBC: Also Tuesday, WHO stuck to its statement that about two billion people could catch H1N1 influenza by the time the flu pandemic ends.

"By the end of a pandemic, anywhere between 15-45 percent of a population will have been infected by the new pandemic virus," WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said in a statement. "Thirty percent is a midpoint estimate and 30 percent of the world's population is 2 billion."

But she added: "We must remember however, that attempts to estimate infection rates can only be very rough."

SHOOT: Of course if H1N1 resembles the 1929 pandemic, and at the moment it does, then it will burn through the entire population in a series of waves. This means every person will suffr symptoms in the next 2-3 years, and perhaps the majority will survive, the earlier waves, and then the virus will probably strengthen as it matures.

clipped from www.msnbc.msn.com GENEVA - The World Health Organization said Tuesday that 1,154 swine flu victims have died since the virus emerged in April. WHO said that includes 338 deaths reported in the week leading up to last Friday. More than 300 of the new deaths were in the Americas, bringing the death toll in that region to 1,008 since the virus first emerged in Mexico and the United States, and developed into the global epidemic. WHO also said there is no evidence that the new H1N1 virus is mutating into a more dangerous form, but that six patients have been found with a virus resistant to Tamiflu, the most commonly used swine flu drug. Laboratory confirmed cases of the disease have reached 162,380, but WHO said this number understates the total caseload because hard-hit countries are no longer testing all the people with flu symptoms.