Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Cuba

Showing posts with label Cuba. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

US Congress approves US$106b for war, H1N1 flu

Posted: 17 June 2009 0816 hrs

US Congress

WASHINGTON: Congress on Tuesday gave final approval to a 106 billion dollar emergency bill to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, shore up efforts to fight H1N1 flu, and fund US participation in the IMF.

By a vote of 226 to 202, lawmakers in the US House of Representatives approved a compromise version of legislation, to reconcile differing House and Senate versions.

Among other budget items, the measure provides 79.9 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, 7.7 billion dollars to combat the Influenza A(H1N1) flu virus, and 8 billion dollars for the International Monetary Fund.

House Democrat David Obey, a key figure during negotiations on the spending measure talks in that chamber, acknowledged some resistance among lawmakers to the IMF funding, but said the monies were necessary to bolster a still-sagging global economy.

"You know, this is a tough reality. We have to participate in the world, and when the world economy becomes shaky, we have a responsibility to ourselves to try to stabilise that world economic situation," he said.

The supplemental spending measure was bogged down after the Senate legislation – over the objections of Democrats in the House – banned public release of the controversial images allegedly showing abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan at the hands of US military personnel.

President Barack Obama broke the logjam last week, however, offering in a letter to negotiators, to "continue to take every legal and administrative remedy available to me to ensure the ... detainee photographs are not released".

The compromise bill also includes provisions on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, but does not include the 80 million dollars originally requested by the Obama administration to close the detention facility at the US naval base in southern Cuba, where some 230 detainees remain.

Under the agreement reached by the Senate and the House, a Democratic source said the government could transfer some prisoners to US soil only to face trial, although the highly sensitive issue of where they would serve out their sentence remains unresolved.

- AFP/so

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Global H1N1 flu spreads as deaths top 100

Posted: 28 May 2009 1221 hrs

School children wearing protective masks as a precaution against the H1N1 flu at a train station in Tokyo, Japan

CHICAGO: The global H1N1 flu death toll marched past 100 on Wednesday with one new fatality reported in the United States and four more in Mexico, the two countries where the first outbreaks were reported.

Prior to the latest North American deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had reported the global toll at 95, with 13,398 people in 48 countries infected with the A(H1N1) virus since it was first uncovered last month.

In Chicago, a second H1N1 flu death was reported by officials, bringing the US toll to 15.

Mexico's four fatalities raised the country's toll to 89 with 100 new infections reported, bringing the total to 4,821, the health ministry said.

Activists from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), clad in mock hazmat suit, display placards across the US Embassy in Manila, Philippines during a brief protest

Around the world, efforts to control the disease continued as new cases were discovered.

Two more countries - the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and South America's Uruguay - each reported their first two confirmed cases of H1N1 flu, raising the number of countries with cases to 50.

Chile confirmed 119 cases late Tuesday, making it by far the South American country most affected by the outbreak. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador have also reported cases.

In Canada, the number of people infected with H1N1 flu soared past the 1,000 mark with 197 new cases confirmed Wednesday, according to health officials.

Canada now has 1,118 total A(H1N1) cases, including two deaths. The country has the largest number of infections after Mexico and the United States.

Commuters wearing masks as a precaution against the swine flu walk through a station in the morning rush hour in Kobe, western Japan

Elsewhere, services continued to slowly return to something approaching normalcy.

In Mexico, cruise ships began calling at Cozumel after a one-month hiatus.

Australia, meanwhile, slapped tough measures on cruise ships docking in Sydney in a bid to stop the spread of the disease.

Under the new rules, all cruise liners docking in Sydney will be treated as potential H1N1 flu sites and passengers will be held on board until the ship is cleared.

Australia's restrictions came with the A(H1N1) virus spreading further throughout Asia.

But the WHO has so far resisted declaring the disease a full-fledged pandemic.

Thermal imaging equipment which will be used to scan passengers for the influenza A(H1N1) virus at Sydney's Kingsford Smith International Airport

The outbreak has spread further in Asia, with Singapore confirming its first case and Hong Kong, where Asia's first infection sparked a week-long quarantine of around 300 guests and staff at a city hotel, announced a fresh total of 10.

Japan has seen a rapid rise in confirmed cases, saying Wednesday it had over 350.

In Europe, Romania announced its first confirmed infection in a woman who returned from New York on May 23 with her two young children.

Greece reported its third H1N1 flu case as health officials called a fresh emergency meeting, while stressing the situation was under "complete control."

Besides the human toll, Mexico's economy has taken a deep hit from the virus.

Mexican restaurant owners said that some 6,500 eateries remained definitively closed due to losses made during the H1N1 flu epidemic, shedding more than 55,000 jobs.

Almost half of those forced to close were in the sprawling capital, where the government ordered all restaurants to shut temporarily at the height of the epidemic, the national chamber of the restaurant industry said.

- AFP/yb

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Swine flu cases soar towards 10,000

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.

----------
Are you prepared for the next outbreak?

Related articles by Zemanta

Flu Outbreak Map

Map by outbreak size in Honduras about A H1N1. :Key: No communitiy outbreak Small community outbreak Medium-sized community outbreak Big community outbreak Huge/Evident community outbreak (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Follow the link below to see a map of the swine flu outbreak. This map is from ChannelNewsAsia.com

Swine Flu Outbreak Map.

Friday, May 15, 2009

US government lifts advisory against travel to Mexico

A pharmacy worker in Tijuana, Mexico.

WASHINGTON: The US government on Friday lifted its advisory against non-essential travel to Mexico that was introduced following the outbreak of swine flu in that country.

"The Department of State wishes to inform US citizens travelling to and residing in Mexico that on May 15 2009, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lifted its recommendation that American citizens avoid all nonessential travel to Mexico," the department said in an advisory.

"As a result of the CDC's decision, the State Department's Travel Alert relating to the 2009-H1N1 influenza outbreak is no longer in effect," the statement continued.

The CDC said for its part that there was evidence that the Mexican outbreak was slowing down in many cities.

"In addition, the United States and other countries are now seeing increasing numbers of cases not associated with travel to Mexico," the centres said. "Finally, the risk of severe disease from novel H1N1 virus infection now appears to be less than originally thought."

At the same time, the US government said travellers to Mexico should continue to take precaution to reduce their risk of infection while in Mexico.

The warning against travel to Mexico came last month, on the heels of the World Health Organization (WHO) reporting on April 24 that a new and fast-spreading strain of H1N1 or swine-origin influenza had been detected in the country.

As travellers shunned Mexico, the country's tourism industry, which with business travel usually brings between 22 and 23 million visitors to the Latin American country each year, took a huge hit.

US airlines cut capacity on hundreds of flights to Mexico because of the sharp fall in reservations earlier this month when fears were at their peak that the flu outbreak would reach the scale of a global pandemic.

International cruise ship companies diverted liners away from Mexican ports, and British, French and German tour operators cancelled packages to the country.

- AFP/so

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

----------

Vaccination everyday?