Has Swine Flu Flown?
It may finally be the beginning of the end for the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, as Mexico City's mayor has reduced the flu virus threat level a notch with no new cases discovered in the past week.
It may finally be the beginning of the end for the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, as Mexico City’s mayor has reduced the flu virus threat level a notch with no new cases discovered in the past week.
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Mexico City lowered its swine flu alert level from yellow to green late last night as the mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, claimed residents could “relax” as there had been no new infections for a week.
Ebrard said the change meant the risk of contagion was low, the situation was under control and the images of countless people wearing blue surgical masks around the city could be consigned to history.
There’s no longer any need to wear masks, Ebrard said, adding: “Now you can come to the city without any risk.”
With fears of an immediate global pandemic fading, Japan, where there have been almost 300 swine flu cases, also relaxed rules amid fears that the strict regulations could harm the economy and put needless restrictions on the public.
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Sources in Taiwan say that a previously unseen variant of avian influenza infected a 20-year-old woman in that country in the first recorded case of an H6N1 virus infecting and causing disease in a human.
University of Tokyo scientist Yoshihiro Kawaoka is making the case for unfettered access to studies in which researchers made a lethal bird flu virus even deadlier by taking it airborne. To those determined to find it, the recipe is already available, he warns, and the mutation could occur outside the laboratory at any moment. All hands to the urgent task of developing a vaccine, then.
Two reports released Friday are critical of the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 flu pandemic -- which was dubbed "exaggeration on stilts" -- as well as the fact that some WHO scientists had previously been on the payroll of big drug companies.
Remember the H1N1 panic that erupted only last year that sent public health bodies into a frenzy as we braced for worldwide catastrophe? Well, it turns out everything may have been a bit overstated, and that the credibility lost by health organizations could actually endanger lives.
China's authoritarianism has apparently helped the country keep a lid on the global H1N1 pandemic. Similarly populated India has experienced nearly 17 times as many deaths from the disease. The United States, with less than a quarter of China's population, has recorded about 133 times as many deaths. (continued)
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