Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 20-May-2009 04:10 hrs
United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (R) speaks with World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan during a news conference in Geneva. Ban urged people to remain "vigilant and alert" about swine flu on Tuesday as the number of cases around the world shot up to almost 10,000.
Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis said it had received samples of the new A(H1N1) influenza virus and was waiting for the green light from WHO to start making a vaccine.
But it would take three to four weeks to get production up and running, said a spokesman.
Vaccine developments will be eagerly watched in world capitals, none more so than in Tokyo where officials are struggling to keep a lid on Japan's growing epidemic.
Experts warned infections had probably already spread to other regions including the capital Tokyo, which with almost 36 million people is the world's most populous urban area.
Japan's first domestic cases of swine flu were confirmed Saturday in the western cities of Kobe and Osaka, where they spread quickly in and between two high schools that had met for a volleyball tournament.
Hundreds have since been tested for the virus, and face masks have become ubiquitous on subways and in shopping centres of the affected prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo in the central region of the main island of Honshu.
New York medical authorities were meanwhile also testing Tuesday whether swine flu killed a 16-month-old boy who died with a high fever.
"We don't know yet whether the child who died contracted the H1N1 virus," Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a press conference. "The tests won't be done till later today or tomorrow."
New Yorkers are on high alert after the city's first fatality from swine flu, a school vice principal who died over the weekend.
Apart from 72 deaths in Mexico, swine flu has killed six people in the United States, and one each in Canada and Costa Rica. — AFP
From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.
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Are you prepared for the next outbreak?
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Posted: 20-May-2009 04:10 hrs
United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (R) speaks with World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Margaret Chan during a news conference in Geneva. Ban urged people to remain "vigilant and alert" about swine flu on Tuesday as the number of cases around the world shot up to almost 10,000. Swiss pharmaceutical group Novartis said it had received samples of the new A(H1N1) influenza virus and was waiting for the green light from WHO to start making a vaccine.
But it would take three to four weeks to get production up and running, said a spokesman.
Vaccine developments will be eagerly watched in world capitals, none more so than in Tokyo where officials are struggling to keep a lid on Japan's growing epidemic.
Experts warned infections had probably already spread to other regions including the capital Tokyo, which with almost 36 million people is the world's most populous urban area.
Japan's first domestic cases of swine flu were confirmed Saturday in the western cities of Kobe and Osaka, where they spread quickly in and between two high schools that had met for a volleyball tournament.
Hundreds have since been tested for the virus, and face masks have become ubiquitous on subways and in shopping centres of the affected prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo in the central region of the main island of Honshu.
New York medical authorities were meanwhile also testing Tuesday whether swine flu killed a 16-month-old boy who died with a high fever.
"We don't know yet whether the child who died contracted the H1N1 virus," Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a press conference. "The tests won't be done till later today or tomorrow."
New Yorkers are on high alert after the city's first fatality from swine flu, a school vice principal who died over the weekend.
Apart from 72 deaths in Mexico, swine flu has killed six people in the United States, and one each in Canada and Costa Rica. — AFP
From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.
----------
Are you prepared for the next outbreak?
Related articles by Zemanta
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