SWINE FLU SPREADS TO EUROPE
Spain Confirms First Case As Countries Rush To Scan Travellers Washington/Madrid: Governments are racing to find and contain pockets of swine flu around the globe, seeking to stem both the threat of a pandemic and public panic as Spain confirmed the country’s first case of on Monday. It was the first confirmed swine flu case in Europe and the first outside of North America. In Mexico, the outbreak’s epicenter, soldiers handed out 6 million face masks to help stop the spread of the virus that has killed up to 103 people. Most other countries are reporting only mild cases, with most of the sick already recovering. Spain confirmed its first case of swine flu on Monday and said another 20 people are suspected of having the disease. Health minister Trinidad Jimenez said the patient is a young man who had recently returned from Mexico where he had been as part of his university studies. Jimenez said this is Europe’s first confirmed case of the swine flu outbreak. WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said the virus was spreading quickly in Mexico and US, raising fears of a global pandemic. Governments in Asia — with memories of Sars and bird flu outbreaks — heeded the warning. Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines dusted off thermal scanners used during the 2003 Sars crisis and were checking for signs of fever among passengers arriving at airports from North America. AGENCIES * ‘Virus could mutate into deadlier strain’ *The swine flu virus that has killed dozens in Mexico could mutate into a “more dangerous” strain, a senior WHO official said, adding that the UN agency will decide on Tuesday if it should raise its alert rating. “Yes, it’s quite possible for this virus to evolve,” Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant-general for health, security and the environment said. AFP * Obama’s host in Mexico dies from flu-like symptoms: *Felipe Solis, a distinguished archaeologist who showed Barack Obama around the Mexico City’s anthropology museum during his visit to Mexico earlier this month, died the day after from “flu-like symptoms”. Sources in the White House said that the president’s doctors had given him an all-clear. ANI Panic attack around the world Chidanand Rajghatta | TNN Washington: The expression ‘‘if pigs could fly’’, mockingly used to mean an event which will never occur, now has an ironic ring to it. Yet another worldwide panic attack, over swine flu, joins Sars and bird flu among modern-day epidemics that have threatened to bring the world to a halt. As if the recession-stricken world needed yet another scare. Originating in Mexico, swine flu has caused more than 100 deaths there and moved to the US, where more than a dozen children in New York are found to have caught it after a visit to Mexico. Even as the US issued a nationwide public health alert, the virus has moved on to Canada, and Europe, where cases have been reported in Spain and UK. Reports are coming in from as far as New Zealand now. The origins of swine flu, caused by Orthomyxoviruses endemic to pig populations, remain unknown. * GLOBAL SCARE ** US declares public health emergency * Washington: The United States declared a public health emergency as a precautionary measure. A top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that she feared there would be deaths in the US as the new strain of flu spreads. US president Barack Obama, however, said while there was cause for concern, there was no need for alarm. The decision by his administration to declare a US public health emergency was a ‘‘precautionary tool’’ that would give health officials the resources needed to respond quickly and effectively to the flu threat, he said. Different strains of the virus have been around for some time, and some scientists now believe that Asian and European strains travelled to Mexico in migratory birds or in people, then combined with North American strains in Mexican pig factory farms before jumping over to farm workers. Mexican health officials have said that the original disease vector of the virus may have been flies multiplying in manure lagoons of pig farms near the town of Perote in Veracruz. The new strain is called H1N1, a subtype of the species influenza A virus. What has triggered the panic is the knowledge that a variant of H1N1 was responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 50 million to 100 million people worldwide over about a year in 1918 and 1919. Such an episode has not occurred again, and fears that epidemics like Sars would be on the same scale have been misplaced. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""GLOBAL SPECULATORS"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalspeculators?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
