A 30-year-old male student enrolled in the United States has been confirmed as China’s second H1N1, or swine flu, case, and its first on the mainland, according to the information office of the Chinese Health Ministry.
“Bao” began his journey at St. Louis, Missouri, took a connecting flight at St. Paul, Minnesota, for Tokyo, Japan on May 7th, according to Xinhua state-run news agency.
Asian countries will increase stockpiles of medicine to fight the H1N1 flu virus and look at ways to share essential supplies in the event of an emergency, according to a statement drafted for a meeting Friday.
Health ministers from the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and South Korea will intensify cross-border cooperation and establish joint response teams to fight the spread of the virus, also known as swine flu.
According to the statement, the ministers were concerned that most of the production capacity for vaccines was located in North America and Europe and it was inadequate for a global pandemic.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico will resume normal business activity this week after its swine flu emergency eased, but the global flu alert triggered a trade dispute on Monday over bans on Mexican, U.S. and Canadian pork.
International tensions triggered by the new H1N1 virus, which contains mostly swine components with bits of human and avian influenzas, emerged after about 20 nations banned imports of pork, pigs and other meat from the United States, Canada and Mexico, the three most flu-affected countries.
Mexico, the epicentre of the new flu outbreak which has surfaced in 21 countries, declared it was winning the battle against the flu, which has killed 26 people in the Latin American oil producer nation.
The new H1N1 flu virus appears to be fairly widespread in the United States and seems to be hitting mostly younger people, with very few cases reported in people over 50, U.S. health officials said on Sunday.
“We think very few of the cases we have confirmed are in people over 50,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Dr Anne Schuchat told reporters in a telephone briefing. “Whether this will pan out over the weeks ahead we don’t know.”
The CDC reported 226 cases of the new H1N1 swine flu virus and one death in 30 states. The CDC previously had confirmed 160 cases in 21 states.
New tests are being shipped to U.S. states that should speed up efforts to screen for the new flu virus that threatens to start a pandemic, health officials said on Thursday.
And a lab with the new test has been set up in Mexico in the hope of finding out how many of the 2,500 suspected cases are in fact the new strain of H1N1 swine flu.
“Now there is a lab that is up and running in Mexico that is able to do diagnoses,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters.
