WHO releases a report confirming the outbreak and raise the pandemic alert.
Egypt becomes the first country in Africa to report a confirmed case of swine flu to WHO.
the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6 in response to the ongoing global spread of the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus. A Phase 6 designation indicates that a global pandemic is underway.WHO is still working to inform countries exactly what phase 6 means and to avoid a "blossoming of anxiety" once a pandemic is declared.
Twenty people in France are suspected to be infected with swine flu virus and are put under observation, French health authorities said Tuesday.
A total of 107 French people have reported symptoms of flu after returning from Mexico since April 25, and 30 of them were listed as possible swine flu cases after the first round of medical tests, Francoise Weber, head of French Institute for Public Health Surveillance (INVS), told a press conference here.
The new tally showed that the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia had all reported cases to the WHO for the first time.
Health officials in Estonia confirmed that they had detected the virus in a 29-year-old man who had returned from United States two days earlier.
And Hungary announced its first confirmed swine flu case: a Brazilian man living in New York who had come to Hungary on Wednesday.
The German case concerned a nurse who had contracted the virus at a hospital in Bavaria from a patient recently returned from Mexico. So far only Spain had reported a similar transmission of the virus within Europe.
Jörg Hacker, head of the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute, said that the nurse had since recovered from the flu, which has spread from Mexico across the world. There are now five confirmed cases in Germany, four of them in Bavaria and one in Hamburg, and Hacker said that further cases were expected. "We are not surprised, but we are concerned," he said.
05/01/2009
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SWINE FLU SPREADS
Germany Confirms First Human-to-Human Infection
Swine flu is spreading -- and it's not just affecting travellers returning from Mexico. Germany reported its first case of human-to-human infection on Friday. Now the WHO wants to understand just how easy it is to catch the A/H1N1 virus.
The A/H1N1 flu is spreading outside of North America -- but so far most cases have been "mild."
While Denmark and Hong Kong announced their first confirmed cases of so-called swine flu on Friday, the first case of human-to-human infection in Germany was also confirmed.
A doctor in Mexico shows a strip used to detect the A/H1N1 virus.
AFP
A doctor in Mexico shows a strip used to detect the A/H1N1 virus.
The German case concerned a nurse who had contracted the virus at a hospital in Bavaria from a patient recently returned from Mexico. So far only Spain had reported a similar transmission of the virus within Europe.
Jörg Hacker, head of the Berlin-based Robert Koch Institute, said that the nurse had since recovered from the flu, which has spread from Mexico across the world. There are now five confirmed cases in Germany, four of them in Bavaria and one in Hamburg, and Hacker said that further cases were expected. "We are not surprised, but we are concerned," he said.
