Flu, Virus | featured news

Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis AG said Friday it has successfully produced a first batch of swine flu vaccine weeks ahead of expectations.

The World Health Organization has declared a global flu pandemic after an emergency meeting, reports suggest.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday a spike in swine flu cases in Australia may push it to finally announce the first flu pandemic in 41 years. It also expressed concern about an unusual rise in severe illness from the disease in Canada.

Study's finding may prove useful when and if a vaccine to new swine-flu strain becomes available.

The increasing number of swine flu cases in Japan raises the likelihood that the World Health Organization will soon have to raise its pandemic alert level to 6.

Swine flu sickened 21 more students in Japan and Turkey reported its first case of the potentially pandemic virus that's spread to about 40 countries.

India and Turkey record their first cases of swine flu, giving further evidence that the virus is spreading.

An assistant principal was in critical condition with New York’s most serious case of the swine flu virus so far.

MEXICO CITY — Mexico has confirmed two more deaths from swine flu, bringing the death toll to 66, the health secretary said Friday. Tests have confirmed 239 more cases for a total of 2,895 cases, including the deaths, said Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova. The numbers jumped because officials were able to process more backlogged cases.
The deaths represent 2.3 percent of the total cases, showing the illness is less deadly than initially feared, Cordova said.

The last death was May 10.

The swine flu panic has faded, but the damage could be lasting to Mexico's tourism industry. Millions of dollars of have been lost from the country's third largest source of revenue. The Caribbean resort of Cancun has been particularly hard hit, with 22 hotels closed and about 10,000 workers furloughed.