Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
“China faces a grim situation in containing the H1N1 [swine] flu, as schools start up again and the number of domestic cases, as well as clusters of cases, rises, China’s Minister of Health said on Tuesday,” Reuters reports.
The WHO on Friday announced the H1N1 (swine) flu virus has killed at least 2,837 people – the result of an continued increase in the number of H1N1 cases worldwide, not the virulence of the virus, Reuters reports. “There is no sense that the virus has mutated or changed in any sense,” WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl said during a news conference (Nebehay/MacInnis, 9/4).
The H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine will cost countries between $2.50 and $20 per dose, based upon their ability to pay, according to the director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research at the WHO, Marie-Paule Kieny, Agence France-Presse/Khaleej Times reports.
After a day of meetings with senior White House officials to discuss the U.S. preparations for H1N1 (swine) flu Tuesday, President Obama urged Americans to take the proper precautions to protect themselves from infection, the Associated Press/Boston Herald reports (9/1).
The Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech Ltd. on Monday announced its H1N1 (swine) flu vaccine won the approval of a panel of experts from China’s State Food and Drug Administration, the Associated Press/Forbes reports.
The number of H1N1 (swine) flu cases are steadily declining in the Southern Hemisphere as the region’s flu season comes to an end, the WHO said Friday, the Associated Press reports.
The H1N1 (swine) flu is blamed for 557 deaths in Brazil, “making it the country with the highest number of fatalities in the world from the disease,” according to the country’s health ministry, Agence France-Presse reports.
A spokesperson for the WHO said on Tuesday that Asia will not have enough H1N1 vaccines for swine flu when cold weather hits, Reuters reports.
A U.S. presidential panel report released Monday estimates H1N1 (swine) flu could infect up to half of the country’s population, the Washington Post reports.
The WHO’s flu chief Keiji Fukuda on Saturday called upon wealthy nations and vaccine manufacturers to donate H1N1 (swine) flu vaccines to developing countries, the Associated Press reports.