Posted: 24 Apr 2009 02:22 PM PDT

Swine flu news updates will be posted here continually throughout
the day. Our original post on the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the
US can be read here. Swine Flu - Outbreak in Mexico, U.S. Tied To New Unique Strain

UPDATE: April 24, 9:00pm PST Additional News Story Links

• Source
  

• Possible Swine Flu Outbreak At NYC Prep School…
  

• Most fatal flu victims aged between 25-45…
  

• Swine flu could infect trade and travel…
  

• Schwarzenegger has ‘rigorous’ plan..
  

• WHO ready with antivirals…
  

• The mysterious respiratory illness…
  

• CDC says too late to contain…
  

• 60 DEAD: Mexico City launches huge vaccination campaign…
  

• CLOSE TO 1,000 SUSPECTED CASES…
  

• Heighten Risk of Pandemic…
  

• Concerns in California, Texas…
  

• Mutated from pigs, transmitted to humans…
  

• Mexico has not suffered serious flu epidemic before…
  

UPDATE: April 24, 5:42 pm PST New York City health
officials say that about 75 students at a Queens high school have
fallen ill with flu-like symptoms and testing is under way to rule out
the strain of swine flu that has killed dozens in Mexico. Read More

UPDATE: April 24, 3:02 PST California has activated
the Joint Emergency Operations Center (JEOC) of the Department of
Public Health, in coordination with the California Emergency Management
Agency.

UPDATE: April 24, 2:38 PST 1004 cases of swine flu in Mexico, 68 people have died. Source

US medical authorities expressed strong concern Friday about an unprecedented multi-strain swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 60 people in Mexico and infected seven people in the United States.

"It's very obvious that we are very concerned. We've stood up emergency operation centers," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spokesman Dave Daigle told AFP.

One major source of concern was that the virus included strains from different types of flu.

"This is the first time that we've seen an avian strain, two swine strains and a human strain," said Daigle, adding that the virus had influenza strains from European and Asian swine, but not from North American swine.

In 11 of 12 reported human cases of swine influenza (H1N1) virus infection in the United States from December 2005 to February 2009, the CDC has documented direct or indirect contact with swine.

But the seven known cases of the previously undetected strain in the United States — five from California and two from Texas — did not have contact with pigs. The seven people infected have all recovered from the flu.

"We have determined that this virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human," the CDC said on its website. "However, at this time, we have not determined how easily the virus spreads between people."

Local and state health officials were interviewing not just the people who were infected but the people with whom they had contact, Daigle noted.
Source

CDC says too late to contain U.S. flu outbreak

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it was too late to contain the swine flu outbreak in the United States.

CDC acting director Dr. Richard Besser told reporters in a telephone briefing it was likely too late to try to contain the outbreak, by vaccinating, treating or isolating people.

"There are things that we see that suggest that containment is not very likely," he said.

He said the U.S. cases and Mexican cases are likely the same virus. "So far the genetic elements that we have looked at are the same." But Besser said it was unclear why the virus was causing so many deaths in deaths in Mexico and such mild disease in the United States.

3rd Possible Swine Flu Outbreak In Mexico

Mexico has reported a third possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexicali, near the U.S. border, with four suspect cases and no deaths to date, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.
Source

World Health Orginization calls emergency meeting on swine flu

The World Health Organization said on Friday that it was convening an emergency committee to advise whether outbreaks of swine flu in the United States and Mexico constituted an international public health threat.

"WHO will convene, sometime in the very near future, an emergency committee under the International Health Regulations, which will consider whether or not this event constitutes a public health event of international concern," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told Reuters in Geneva.

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