Mexican authorities sought to reassure citizens Saturday over a deadly new multi-strain swine flu, as the World Health Organization warned that the virus had “pandemic potential.”
The outbreak of the new virus transmitted from human to human that has killed up to 60 people and infected hundreds in Mexico and infected eight in the United States is a “serious situation” with a “pandemic potential”, the head of the World Health Organization said Saturday.
The Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of the capital Manila to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday.
But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.
The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.
“There is ongoing viral transmission in Bulacan … as a precautionary measure, depopulation will be carried out in the Bulacan farm,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters, referring to the farm just north of Manila.
The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. Duque said 147 human samples have been tested for Ebola, but only six have tested positive. But all six remain healthy, he added.
“Ebola-Reston poses a low risk to human health at this time,” Duque said.
It is the first time the virus has been found outside monkeys and the first time it has been found in pigs. The virus had previously jumped from monkeys to humans but this was the first case of a jump from hogs.
The Ebola-Reston virus was found in the Philippines as early as the late 1980s and 25 people were found infected after contact with sick monkeys. But only one developed flu-like symptoms and later recovered.
Manila to slaughter 6,000 pigs to stop Ebola spread
China’s Agriculture Ministry said on Thursday that it had found no bird flu cases amongst poultry in Beijing or areas surrounding the city after a woman in the capital died of the H5N1 form of the virus.
Experts had fanned out to Beijing’s neighboring city of Tianjin and Heibei province, which surrounds the capital and where the dead woman had bought ducks, the ministry said in a statement on its website (www.agri.gov.cn).
“After tests for the virus and an epidemiological investigation, no trace of the bird flu virus was found in these three areas,” it said.
The 19-year-old died of the H5N1 virus after gutting ducks, which experts say highlights the role and risks of waterfowl in the transmission of the virus to humans.
An outbreak of salmonella food poisoning has made 388 people sick across 42 states, sending 18 percent of them to the hospital, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is trying to trace the source of the outbreak, which began in September. The Department of Agriculture, state health officials and the Food and Drug Administration are also involved.
The CDC said poultry, cheese and eggs are the most common source of this particular strain, known as Salmonella typhimurium.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A World Health Organization official urged Asian governments Thursday not to let down their guard against bird flu, saying a new outbreak in Hong Kong shows the disease still poses a threat.
WHO Western Pacific Director Shigeru Omi said Hong Kong authorities have responded well by suspending poultry imports for 21 days and starting the slaughter of 80,000 birds after three chickens found dead at a farm Monday tested positive for the H5 virus group. Further tests are being conducted to see if they had the deadly H5N1 strain.
Philippine officials tucked into servings of lechon, the popular dish of roasted whole pig, in front of television cameras on Thursday to reassure the public of the safety of the national staple meat after the discovery among hogs near Manila of a strain of the Ebola virus.
Arthur Yap, agriculture secretary, and Francisco Duque, health secretary, said the Ebola Reston virus, which had never been found in pigs before, presented a low health risk for humans and was different from the deadly African variety.
The World Health Organization said Friday that 294 people had died in a cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, fostered by the country’s collapsing health care system. Fadela Chaib, an organization spokeswoman, said 6,072 cases of cholera had been reported since August, with a surge in the past two weeks.
GENEVA (AP) — – The U.N. health agency says it is investigating a mystery disease that killed three people in the South African city of Johannesburg.
The World Health Organization says the disease appears to be a form of hemorrhagic fever.
It says tests have proved negative for Ebola, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg fever and other main types of hemorrhagic fever.
GENEVA (AP) — – The U.N. health agency says it is investigating a mystery disease that killed three people in the South African city of Johannesburg.
The World Health Organization says the disease appears to be a form of hemorrhagic fever.
It says tests have proved negative for Ebola, Lassa fever, Rift Valley fever, Marburg fever and other main types of hemorrhagic fever.
(CBS/ AP) Cholera has broken out in a province south of Baghdad and at least 20 cases of the waterborne disease have been confirmed there, a Health Ministry official said Monday.
However, local authorities in Babil province insist the real figure is much higher and have complained that the government in Baghdad has been slow in responding to the outbreak.
Health Ministry official Dr. Ihsan Jaafar said the figure of confirmed cases was based on an examination of samples taken from the victims over the last week. He said one death – a 60-year-old man – had been confirmed.
