Swine flu round up - June 04, 2009
All Nature’s swine flu coverage is collected on our news special page. These regular updates on The Great Beyond round up the latest from other news sources around the globe.
H1N1 has reached Africa, with the World Health Organization confirming a case in Egypt. AFP says the Egyptian case involves a 12-year-old girl with joint US and Egyptian nationality.
Bloomberg says the WHO will raise the pandemic level to 6 soon. This would mean swine flu had “caused sustained community level outbreaks” in two different regions.
Earlier this week, Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director general, warned, “Globally, we believe that we are at Phase 5 but are getting closer to Phase 6 and this is based on the following assessment: it is clear that the virus continues to spread internationally, we know that there are a number of countries who appear to be in transition moving from travel-related cases to more established community types of spread.”
The White House has asked for more swine flu money to be made available, should it be needed. According to the Wall Street Journal, president Barack Obama wants $2 billion to prepare for a possible comeback of H1N1 in the autumn and also for the authority to take 1% of the $311 billion allocated for economic stimulus if it was needed in a “worst case scenario”.
More swine flu news
AstraZeneca's MedImmune biotechnology unit has won an initial $90 million order from the U.S. government to make a live attenuated vaccine against the new H1N1 flu strain, it said on Monday.
- ReutersA further 23 cases of swine flu related to the Eton College outbreak have been confirmed by health officials over the past two days.
- BBCAs Australia's swine flu outbreak topped 620 -- making it the biggest outside of the Americas -- NSW, Queensland and South Australia yesterday ordered children who had travelled to greater metropolitan Melbourne to stay away from schools for a week on their return.
- The Australian
Image top: Getty
