Mexican Officials Claim Flu Cases Stabilizing
According to an announcement by Mexican health officials on Thursday, the number of swine flu cases in the country have begun to level off. Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova stated in a press conference that he is hopeful the pattern will continue.
Mexico City’s mayor followed with similar hopeful comments, saying that the newest statistics showed that the city was “entering into a period of stabilization.”
In response to the comments from Cordova and other Mexican officials, the World Health Organization’s top flu expert, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, has advised caution, saying that the number of cases often goes up and down and that the WHO is waiting for more solid evidence before speaking of any stabilization in the number of cases.
“It’s a mixed pattern out there,” said Dr. Fukuda. “What’s happening in one part of the country is not necessarily what’s happening in another part of the country.”
Just one day after the WHO raised the alert level to Phase 5, several new cases were confirmed in both the United States and Europe.
WHO officials explained that raising the alert level allowed the organization to release additional efforts and funds to be used in the production of a vaccine. They added on Thursday that there had been no events of the past day that would lead them to believe that they would have to further raise the alert level.
“So, at this time again, I want to repeat there is nothing to us which immunologically suggests today that we should be moving toward a phase 6,” explained the Fukuda.
American health officials confirmed that the total number of cases within its borders had risen to 109, with one death in Texas. President Obama has reassured Americans and the world that the U.S. government is “taking the utmost precautions and preparations” to hinder the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile, European Union health officials are holding emergency meetings in Luxembourg and discussing ways to speed up the process of the development of a pilot vaccine to curb the further spread of the disease.
U.S. virologists are working around the clock in efforts to develop the most important element of a potential new vaccine: a version of the virus engineered to set off an immune response. In a statement on Thursday, however, they cautioned that the process would likely take months before they have a sufficient quantity available to begin test vaccinations with humans.
In a televised address to the nation on Wednesday night, Mexican President Felipe Calderon told Mexican citizens, “There is no safer place to protect yourself against catching swine flu than in your house. This was followed by official orders for businesses and government services to be suspended for five days beginning on Friday. The nation’s schools have been shut down since Tuesday.
Switzerland and the Netherlands became the most recent countries to confirm new cases of swine flu within their borders.
Swiss officials say a 19-year-old college student with the virus was mistakenly released from the hospital, but then quickly readmitted as health officials realized their mistake. The Dutch reported that a 3-year-old boy had become infected after recently traveling with his family to Mexico. They added that he was receiving treatment and appeared to be recovering quickly.
Amongst news on Thursday that the number of confirmed swine flu cases worldwide had risen to 257, WHO officials made another somewhat unexpected announcement. According to the organization’s spokesman Dick Thompson, they will stop referring to the virus as swine flu and begin referring to it by its scientific name in an effort to clear up misconceptions about the dangers it poses to pigs.
“Rather than calling this swine flu”¦ we’re going to stick with the technical scientific name, H1N2 influenza A,” he said.
Thompson explained that the name change follows concerns that from agricultural groups around the world that the term “swine flu” was unnecessarily frightening consumers into avoiding pork products.
On Wednesday, Egyptian officials announced that they would begin slaughtering all of the country’s roughly 300,000 pigs as a precautionary measure.
In the last week, WHO officials have made repeated announcements that the virus is not spread by consuming pork products.
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