A Texas woman with the H1N1 flu died earlier this week, state health officials said, the second death outside Mexico, where the epidemic appeared to be waning.
Officials said on Tuesday the woman, who was in her 30s, had chronic health problems. US health officials have predicted that the new virus would spread and inevitably kill some people, just as seasonal flu does.
Last week a Mexican toddler visiting Texas also died. Mexican officials have reported 29 confirmed deaths.
The WHO was monitoring the spread of the virus and said 21 countries had reported 1,490 cases. The US has 403 confirmed cases in 38 states, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, with another 700 “probable” cases. Canada has reported 165 cases.
“Those numbers will go up, we anticipate, and unfortunately there are likely to be more hospitalizations and more deaths,” US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said.
Health officials said the outbreak seemed to be slowing in Mexico, the country hardest-hit by the virus, which is a mixture of swine viruses and elements of human and bird flu. At the same time, infections were breaking out globally.
An aircraft carrying 97 Chinese stranded in Mexico by the flu scare was expected to arrive in Shanghai late yesterday and all on board appeared healthy, state media said.
“Doctors are monitoring the passengers’ health,” Xinhua news agency quoted China Southern airline as saying, describing them as being “in normal condition.”
An AeroMexico plane arrived in Shanghai on Tuesday to repatriate dozens of Mexicans who had become pawns in a drama about how far governments should go to stifle fears that the H1N1 virus could cross their borders.
None of the 43 Mexicans that Beijing quarantined had shown symptoms of the H1N1 flu virus, prompting Mexico to accuse China of discrimination.
China denied the allegation, saying isolation was the correction procedure.
Trade skirmishes over pork also worsened, with some countries imposing new restrictions, despite assurances by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that pork, especially cooked pork, was safe to eat.
US and Canadian pig and pork exports have been hit by bans from Russia to Ecuador that rattled the US$26 billion-a-year global pork industry, in which Mexico, the US and Canada are among top exporters.
The question remained how far the virus would spread and how serious would it be. The WHO remained at pandemic alert level 5, meaning a pandemic could be imminent.
If it continues to spread outside the Americas, the WHO would likely move to phase 6, a full pandemic alert. This would prompt countries to activate pandemic plans, distribute antiviral drugs and antibiotics and perhaps advise people to take other precautions like limiting large gatherings.
Meanwhile, top health officials from 13 Asian countries were scheduled to meet in Thailand this week to try to forge a common front in the fight against the virus, the meeting’s chairman said yesterday.
Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque is to serve as chairman of the meeting, which is scheduled to be held in Bangkok tomorrow, as the world’s most populous continent tries to keep a lid on H1N1.
Health ministers from the 10-member ASEAN and their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea will “compare our pandemic flu preparedness,” Duque told reporters in Manila.
The ministers are to review surveillance systems in place at ports of entry and measures to prevent the spread of the virus, he said.
They will also be looking at how health workers can be protected and the capacity of hospitals, he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS