06/10/2009 | 08:07 PM
BEIJING — China's confirmed cases of swine flu topped 100 on Wednesday, while the World Health Organization said a spike in infections in Australia may push it to finally announce the first global flu pandemic in 41 years.
China reported 12 new cases, and infections were also reported in Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia.
WHO says the virus has infected more than 26,500 people in 73 countries and caused 140 deaths. Most of the cases have been in North America, but Europe and Australia have seen a sharp increase in recent days.
Australia's cases jumped to more than 1,000 on Monday and reached 1,260 by late Wednesday.
If swine flu is shown to be spreading rapidly from person to person in another world region beyond North America, such as Australia, that should trigger the conditions for WHO to declare a pandemic, meaning the outbreak has gone global.
"We are getting really very close to knowing that we are in a pandemic situation," WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said in Geneva on Tuesday.
The last pandemic — the Hong Kong flu of 1968 — killed about 1 million, but ordinary flu kills about 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.
In China, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin remained quarantined in a Shanghai hotel on Wednesday after a passenger on his flight Sunday from New Jersey showed flu symptoms.
His spokeswoman said Chinese officials haven't said when they'll end the quarantine for the mayor, his wife and a security guard.
China, which has confirmed 101 cases on the mainland, has been quarantining people exposed to the virus and is checking the temperatures of passengers at airports throughout the country.
The bustling port city of Tianjin confirmed its first case, a 9-year-old Chinese boy who returned with his mother from Canada on Saturday, the Ministry of Health said late Tuesday.
A 19-month-old Chinese girl in the coastal province of Fujian caught the virus from her father who recently traveled to Canada, it said. There have been at least nine cases of local transmission of swine flu on the mainland, but experts have said it does not represent a serious threat to communities.
There were eight new cases in Beijing, one in eastern Shandong province and another in the central province of Hunan, the ministry said.
In the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, which has tallied swine flu cases separately, officials said Wednesday two more people have been confirmed with swine flu, bringing the number of cases there to 47.
A 55-year-old man tested positive for the virus Wednesday has no travel history, said Thomas Tsang, controller of Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection. It is believed he caught the infection at a cocktail party from a 20 year-old man earlier confirmed with swine flu after returning from London.
A Hong Kong woman recently returned from London also tested positive for the virus.
Meanwhile, the government advised a secondary school to suspend classes starting Thursday after a girl studying there was suspected of having swine flu, Tsang said.
Among other countries reporting new cases:
— South Korea confirmed five new cases, bringing its total to 53. All were South Koreans who had traveled to the U.S., Australia or the Philippines.
— The Philippines reported 23 more cases, including four foreigners, bringing its tally to 77.
— Thailand confirmed three infections, bringing its total to 16. Two were men who had returned from the United States. The third was a boy in Bangkok who has not traveled abroad.
— New Zealand confirmed four new cases, bringing its total to 23.
— Malaysia said an American student and a New Zealand tourist have been hospitalized with swine flu, bringing its total to nine cases. - AP
From GMANews.tv; see the source article here.
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