Texas Officials Report 2nd Swine Flu Dea...(lert level. Currently the WHO has labele...),Health

Date:5/5/2009

lert level. Currently, the WHO has labeled the outbreak a Phase 5 outbreak, meaning the disease is spreading throughout communities in at least two countries in one of the WHO's six regions -- in this case the United States and Mexico. To reach Phase 6, the geographic spread of the disease would have to occur in at least one other country in another region.

The WHO reported Tuesday that the disease continues to spread around the globe, with 21 countries reporting 1,490 cases.

What health experts don't know is whether the never-before-seen virus will return, perhaps in a more dangerous form, when the regular flu season begins again late this year. Because the pathogen is a genetic mix of pig, bird and human flu strains, health officials are worried that humans may have no natural immunity to it.

Besser said Monday that the CDC continues to work to prepare a vaccine, although "the decision doesn't need to be made now whether to manufacture a vaccine" for the next flu season.

Federal health officials will be looking for clues to what the swine flu virus -- officially designated H1N1 -- will do in the fall by monitoring what happens in the Southern Hemisphere, where the flu season there is just getting under way. "That will tell us a lot about whether the virus is changing, whether it's becoming more severe and what measures we might want to take in the fall," he said.

As with the previously tested strains of the swine flu virus, new testing has found that the pathogen remains susceptible to the two common antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, according to the CDC.

And that has led to a boom in sales of the two drugs in the United States, the AP reported Tuesday. Frightened by the prospects of the swine flu, Americans are snapping up the two antiviral medicines that treat the virus, whether they have it or not.

More than one-quarter of a million prescriptions for Tamiflu pills alone were filled
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