Influenza A H1N1 Outbreak

[Rors]

So you probably heard about the new disease that is feared to become a global epidemic, comparable to the 1918 Influenza pandemic that killed nearly 40 million people worldwide.
And nO, it's not Bird flu, but it's Swine flu.
We'll keep this thread for all updates on the ongoing event, analysis, scientific data, explanations...



Swine flu empties Mexico City's churches, streets

AP, 26/04/09

MEXICO CITY – Churches stood empty Sunday in heavily Roman Catholic Mexico City after services were canceled, and health workers screened airports and bus stations for people sickened by a new strain of swine flu that experts fear could become a global epidemic.

President Felipe Calderon has assumed new powers to isolate people infected with the deadly swine flu strain that Mexico's health minister says has killed up to 81 people and likely sickened 1,324 since April 13.

Mexican soldiers and health workers patrolled the capital's subway system handing out surgical masks and looking for possible flu cases. People were advised to seek medical attention if they suffered from multiple symptoms — which include a fever of more than 100 degrees, body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

Hundreds of public events from concerts to sports matches to were called off to keep people from congregating and spreading the virus in crowds. Zoos were closed and visits to juvenile correction centers were suspended.

About a dozen federal police in blue surgical masks stood in front of Mexico City's Metropolitan Cathedral, which was nearly empty after a measure canceling services to avoid large concentrations of people.

Johana Chavez, 22, said she showed up for her confirmation only to find a sign advising that all Masses, baptisms and confirmations were canceled until further notice.

"We are all Catholic so this is a big step, closing the cathedral," she said, cradling a squirming infant in her arms. "I guess I'll have to come back later."

Markets and restaurants were nearly empty. And throngs of Mexicans — some with just a fever — rushed to hospitals.

Mexico appears to have lost valuable days or weeks in detecting the new flu strain, a combination of pig, bird and human viruses that humans may have no natural immunity to. Health officials have found cases in 16 Mexican states. Two dozen new suspected cases were reported in the capital on Saturday alone.

Eleven cases of swine flu were confirmed in California, Texas and Kansas, with more suspected in New York City.

The first death was in southern Oaxaca state on April 13, but Mexico didn't send the first of 14 mucous samples to the CDC until April 18, around the same time it dispatched health teams to hospitals looking for patients with severe flu or pnuemonia-like symptoms.

Those teams noticed something strange: The flu was killing people aged 20 to 40. Flu victims are usually either infants or the elderly. The Spanish flu pandemic, which killed at least 40 million people worldwide in 1918-19, also first struck otherwise healthy young adults.

The World Health Organization on Saturday asked all countries to step up reporting and surveillance of the disease, as airports around the world were screening travelers from Mexico for flu symptoms.

On Sunday, New Zealand reported that 10 students "likely" have swine flu after a school trip to Mexico, though Health Minister Tony Ryall said none of the students was seriously ill and there was no guarantee they had swine flu. Israel's Health Ministry said there is one suspected case in that country and France is investigating four possible cases.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the outbreak of the never-before-seen virus has "pandemic potential." But she said it is still too early to tell if it would become a pandemic — an epidemic that spreads in humans around the world.

WHO guidance calls for isolating the sick and blanketing everyone around them with anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu. Too many patients have been identified in Mexico's teeming capital for such a solution now. But some pandemic flu experts say it's also too late to contain the disease to Mexico and the United States.

"Anything that would be about containing it right now would purely be a political move," said Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota.

Mexican authorities ordered schools closed in the capital and the states of Mexico and San Luis Potosi until May 6.

A team from the Centers for Disease Control was in Mexico to help set up detection testing for the swine flu strain, something Mexico previously lacked.

Health authorities noticed a threefold spike in flu cases in late March and early April, but thought it was a late rebound in the December-February flu season.

Testing at domestic labs did not alert doctors to the new strain. Health Secretary Jose Cordova acknowledged Mexican labs lacked the profiling data needed to detect the previously unknown strain.

Even though U.S. labs detected the swine flu in California and Texas before last weekend, Mexican authorities as recently as Wednesday were referring to it as a late-season flu.

But mid-afternoon Thursday, Mexico City Health Secretary Dr. Armando Ahued said, officials got a call "from the United States and Canada, the most important laboratories in the field, telling us this was a new virus."

Asked why there were so many deaths in Mexico, and none so far among the U.S. cases, Cordova noted that the U.S. cases involved children — who haven't been among the fatal cases in Mexico, either.

"There are immune factors that are giving children some sort of defense, that is the only explanation we have," he said.

Another factor may be that some Mexican patients may have delayed seeking medical help too long, Cordova said.

Others are forced to work and leave their homes despite health concerns.

Wearing two dirty, blue surgical masks she says she found and a heavy coat, Daniela Briseno swept garbage early Sunday morning from the streets in Mexico City.

"This chill air must be doing me harm. I should be at home but I have a family to support," the 31-year-old said.

Scientists have warned for years about the potential for a pandemic from viruses that mix genetic material from humans and animals.

A "seed stock" genetically matched to the new swine flu virus has been created by the CDC, said Dr. Richard Besser, the agency's acting director. If the government decides vaccine production is necessary, manufacturers would need that stock to get started.

[Rors]

Swine flu confirmed in NYC high school students

AP, 26/04/09

NEW YORK – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that students at a city high school were infected with swine flu.

New York officials previously had said they were eight "probable" cases, but tests later confirmed that it was indeed swine flu. Bloomberg stressed that the cases were mild and many are recovering.

The city is awaiting the tests of additional samples to see if more St. Francis Preparatory School students were infected.

About 100 students complained of flu-like symptoms at the school. Some students went to Cancun on a spring break trip two weeks ago.

[Rors]

Swine flu fears prompt quarantine plans, pork bans

AP, 26/04/09

GENEVA – Countries planned quarantines, tightened rules on pork imports and tested airline passengers for fevers as global health officials tried Sunday to come up with uniform ways to battle a deadly strain of swine flu. Nations from New Zealand to France reported new suspected cases and some warned citizens against travel to North America.

World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan held teleconferences with staff and flu experts around the world but stopped short of recommending specific measures to halt the disease beyond urging governments to step up their surveillance of suspicious outbreaks.

Governments including China, Russia and Taiwan began planning to put anyone with symptoms of the deadly virus under quarantine.

Others were increasing their screening of pigs and pork imports from the Americas or banning them outright despite health officials' reassurances that it was safe to eat thoroughly cooked pork.

Some nations issued travel warnings for Mexico and the United States.

Chan called the outbreak a public health emergency of "pandemic potential" because the virus can pass from human to human.

Her agency was considering whether to issue nonbinding recommendations on travel and trade restrictions, and even border closures. It is up to governments to decide whether to follow the advice.

"Countries are encouraged to do anything that they feel would be a precautionary measure," WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said. "All countries need to enhance their monitoring."

New Zealand said that 10 students who took a school trip to Mexico "likely" had swine flu. Israel said a man who had recently visited Mexico had been hospitalized while authorities try to determine whether he had the disease. French Health Ministry officials said four possible cases of swine flu are currently under investigation, including a family of three in the northern Nord region and a woman in the Paris region. The four recently returned from Mexico. Tests on two separate cases of suspected swine flu proved negative, they said.

Spain's Health Ministry said three people who just returned from Mexico were under observation in hospitals in the northern Basque region, in southeastern Albacete and the Mediterranean port city of Valencia.

Mexico closed schools, museums, libraries and theaters in a bid to contain the outbreak after hundreds were sickened there. In the U.S., there have been at least 11 confirmed cases of swine flu in California, Texas and Kansas. Patients have ranged in age from 9 to over 50. At least two were hospitalized. All recovered or are recovering.

New York health officials said more than 100 students at the St. Francis Preparatory School, in Queens, recently began suffering a fever, sore throat and aches and pains. Some of their relatives also have been ill.

Some St. Francis students had recently traveled to Mexico, The New York Times and New York Post reported Sunday.

Preliminary tests of samples taken from sick students' noses and throats confirmed that at least eight had a non-human strain of influenza type A, indicating probable cases of swine flu, city health officials said. The exact subtypes were still unknown, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was conducting further tests.

Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors who came back from flu-affected areas with fevers would be quarantined. China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival an affected area had to report to authorities. A Russian health agency said any passenger from North America running a fever would be quarantined until cause of the fever is determined.

Tokyo's Narita airport installed a device to test the temperatures of passengers arriving from Mexico.

Indonesia increased surveillance at all entry points for travelers with flu-like symptoms — using devices at airports that were put in place years ago to monitor for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and bird flu. It said it was ready to quarantine suspected victims if necessary.

Hong Kong and South Korea warned against travel to the Mexican capital and three affected provinces. Italy, Poland and Venezuela also advised their citizens to postpone travel to affected areas of Mexico and the United States.

Symptoms of the flu-like illness include a fever of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius), body aches, coughing, a sore throat, respiratory congestion and, in some cases, vomiting and diarrhea.

At least 81 people have died from severe pneumonia caused by the disease in Mexico, according to the WHO.

The virus is usually contracted through direct contact with pigs, but Joseph Domenech, chief of animal health service at U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency in Rome, said all indications were that the virus is being spread through human-to-human transmission.

No vaccine specifically protects against swine flu, and it is unclear how much protection current human flu vaccines might offer.

Russia banned the import of meat products from Mexico, California, Texans and Kansas. South Korea said it would increase the number of its influenza virus checks on pork products from Mexico and the U.S.

Serbia on Saturday banned all imports of pork from North America, despite reassurances from the FAO that pigs appear not to be the immediate source of infection.

Italy's agriculture lobby, Coldiretti, warned against panic reaction, noting that farmers lost hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) because of consumers boycotts during the 2001 mad cow scare and the 2005 bird flu outbreak.

Japanese Agriculture Minister Shigeru Ishiba appeared on TV to calm consumers, saying it was safe to eat pork.

In Egypt, health authorities were examining about 350,000 pigs being raised in Cairo and other provinces for swine flu.

The WHO's pandemic alert level is currently at to phase 3. The organization said the level could be raised to phase 4 if the virus shows sustained ability to pass from human to human.

Phase 5 would be reached if the virus is found in at least two countries in the same region.

"The declaration of phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short," WHO said.

Phase 6 would indicate a full-scale global pandemic.

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Let's hope our government is keeping a close look on the threat when they're not busy with the elections

[Rors]

US declares public health emergency for swine flu
AP 26/04/09

WASHINGTON – The U.S. declared a public health emergency Sunday to deal with the emerging new swine flu, much like the government does to prepare for approaching hurricanes.

Officials reported 20 U.S. cases of swine flu in five states so far, with the latest in Ohio and New York. Unlike in Mexico where the same strain appears to be killing dozens of people, cases in the United State have been mild — and U.S. health authorities can't yet explain why.

"As we continue to look for cases, we are going to see a broader spectrum of disease," predicted Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're going to see more severe disease in this country."

At a White House news conference, Besser and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to assure Americans that health officials are taking all appropriate steps to minimize the impact of the outbreak.

Top among those is declaring the public health emergency. As part of that, Napolitano said roughly 12 million doses of the drug Tamiflu will be moved from a federal stockpile to places where states can quickly get their share if they decide they need it. Priority will be given to the five states with known cases so far: California, Texas, New York, Ohio and Kansas.

Napolitano called the emergency declaration standard operating procedure — one was declared recently for the inauguration and for flooding. She urged people to think of it as a "declaration of emergency preparedness."

"Really that's what we're doing right now. We're preparing in an environment where we really don't know ultimately what the size of seriousness of this outbreak is going to be."

[Hye4Lebanon]

ok - so the 100 Lebanese Pounds question - what is Lebanon doing to protect its borders/airports.....???

We do have a Lebanese community in Mexico, chances are we have some Lebanese comming to Beirut for the summer. Not saying they are infected or not, but is our government taking any action? Or we are simply relying on the foreignors to step up to the plate.

Click link below for uptodate info from WHO.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

[Rors]

Experts concerned about potential flu pandemic

* Susan Watts
* Sat 25 Apr 09, 06:00 PM

Experts are clearly extremely concerned about the new swine flu virus which the World Health Organisation warned today has the potential to cause a pandemic.

The virus has killed at least 60 people in Mexico and appears to have infected more than 1,000. The same virus also appears to be behind infections in Texas and California, with suspected cases reportedly being tested in New York.

Dr Alan Hay, director of the World Influenza Centre in London, told me this afternoon that we must take this seriously: "It looks pretty ominous, one has to say. It's difficult to look on the bright side at the moment." He stressed, though, that it's still early days, there's a lot we don't know and he doesn't want to be alarmist.

What's most worrying is that this new virus is affecting young, healthy adults - the same group affected by the pandemic flu virus of 1918. Those usually vulnerable to flu, the elderly and the very young, were at less risk then and, it appears, now.

According to Dr Hay this is key in trying to assess the likelihood of this virus causing a pandemic: "That was the unusual feature about 1918, it was the healthy young adults that suffered most... and I think everybody understands the implications," he said.

He described the situation in Mexico as "totally different" from the intermittent cases of H5N1 bird flu among people, because it appears to be spreading so fast. Sporadic bird flu infections in people have alerted the world to the possibility of a pandemic, but Dr Hay said this H1 swine flu virus is "already worse than H5", in terms of "the number of cases, the number of deaths and the locality of the area affected...This isn't sporadic, this is human".

Dr Hay stressed that it may turn out that the situation is less alarming than it appears now, but this will be hard to assess until experts know clinical details of the cases in Mexico, such as the length of time from infection to death.

Dr Hay's laboratory in north London expects to receive samples from the new cases next week, via the US Centers for Disease Control. His team can then help to advise on the best possible vaccine. Already, his team and others around the world are working on a fast diagnostic test so that labs likely to see new cases can confirm whether or not people have the virus, as soon as possible. Speed will be of the essence in containing infections.

There are eight genes in the flu virus. According to Dr Hay, this new one has six genes from swine flu viruses already known to have been circulating in the US, and two from swine flu viruses from Europe and Asia. The US swine flu virus genes in this new virus are themselves mixtures of swine flu, bird flu and human flu viruses - what's described as a classic "re-assortment" - a combination feared most by those watching for a flu pandemic. Experts around the world have been warning for years that this is inevitable. The last pandemic was in 1968 and killed around a million people worldwide.

The next few days and weeks will be crucial. One possibly hopeful sign is that of the eight cases in the US there has been only one hospitalisation, and no deaths. So it may turn out that there is some other kind of infection at work in Mexico, as well as the new flu virus.

[opium]

Originally Posted by Hye4Lebanon

ok - so the 100 Lebanese Pounds question - what is Lebanon doing to protect its borders/airports.....???

We do have a Lebanese community in Mexico, chances are we have some Lebanese comming to Beirut for the summer. Not saying they are infected or not, but is our government taking any action? Or we are simply relying on the foreignors to step up to the plate.

Click link below for uptodate info from WHO.

WHO | Swine influenza

The same thing they did with bird's flu.

[loubnaniTO]

and now in Canada..............


Swine flu confirmed in Canada
Globe and Mail Update

April 26, 2009 at 6:51 PM EDT

VANCOUVER — Canadian health officials are rushing to contain the spread of swine flu through human contact after at least a half-dozen cases were confirmed in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

Cases in both provinces were linked to Mexican travel — but unlike the deadly outbreak in that country, the illnesses in Nova Scotia and B.C. patients were so mild that none required hospitalization.

The two cases in B.C. involve two separate young men aged 25-35 who recently came back from Mexico, according to Dr. Danuta Skowronski, head of flu and respiratory illnesses at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, run by the provincial government.

The cases were discovered through normal flu testing conducted by the disease control centre after the men had visited a doctor with mild flu symptoms. It was noted they had just returned from Mexico.
Countries planned quarantines, tightened rules on pork imports and tested airline passengers for fevers as global health officials tried Sunday to come up with uniform ways to battle a deadly strain of swine flu
Dr. Richard Besser, Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the United States has 20 swine flu cases in five states

A NYC high school will be closed Monday after more than 100 students came down with flu-like symptoms. It is believed to be the swine flu. That strain has killed more than 60 people in Mexico.


Dr. Skowronski said the two men, who are from the B.C. Lower Mainland, have been asked to “self-isolate” but have not been quarantined.

Dr. Skowronski said the swine flu appears to be “widespread in Mexico” and people should not consider it linked only with urban Mexico City. B.C. health officials also said people in the province should take normal precautions regarding the flu and shouldn't worry unduly - people should watch for a “severe” respiratory illness, rather than milder symptoms.

“We don't want to put a run on physicians' offices,” said Dr. Skowronski, adding that the number of Canadian cases is small so far given the amount of travel to Mexico.

Personnel at B.C. airports are on the watch for anyone with severe flu symptoms but provincial health officials said there isn't any unusual monitoring of passengers.

At a news conference in Ottawa, federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she has been in touch with her provincial and territorial counterparts and has ordered the Public Health Agency of Canada to alert border authorities, quarantine officers and other officials.

“These cases are likely not the last we'll see in Canada,” Ms. Aglukkaq warned.

For the time being, however, Ms. Aglukkaq told the general public to concentrate on “important but very simple precautions.”

They include the standard advice for people to wash their hands frequently, cover their mouths and noses when they cough or sneeze and stay home and avoid contact with others if they feel ill.

The minister also advised anyone who has recently visited Mexico and has developed flu-like symptoms to see a doctor without delay.

Four students at King's-Edgehill School in Windsor, a small town in the province's Annapolis Valley, have had a mild case of swine flu, public health officials confirmed on Sunday.

Classes at the private boarding school, with a student body of 350 in Grades 7-12, are still being held, although all community events and field trips have been cancelled, said headmaster Joseph Seagram.

Of the 23 students who went on the trip, 17 have been isolated from others on campus after feeling ill. Four staff members have also been isolated, two of them at their own homes.

“All of the students who have been sick over the last few days are recovering nicely, or have recovered completely,” Mr. Seagram told a news conference at a local community centre.

The students went on the trip to the Yucatan Peninsula from April 1-8, while the school also played host to a group of students and their families from the Yucatan and Campeche as part of the exchange program.

Health authorities said Sunday some students reported fatigue, muscle aches and coughing, but nothing out of the ordinary for people who suffer from the flu.

Nova Scotia's chief public health officer, Dr. Robert Strang, said the four “very mild” cases of swine flu were detected in students ranging in age from 12 to 18.

“It was acquired in Mexico, brought home and spread,” he told a news conference in Halifax.

“We have to keep things in perspective — it is a mild illness.”

Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed, the Capital Health district's medical health officer, said the students reported “underwhelming” flu symptoms.

“One of the challenges with this illness is that the illness has been so mild that many of the students really can't tell us for certain if they have been sick or how sick,” Dr. Watson-Creed said.

“Some of them have been reporting that they had sniffles two weeks ago, some of them were reporting that they had allergies two weeks ago. So it's hard to pin down exactly what the number (of sick children) is, but we're working to uncover that.”

Dr. Strang said a lab in Halifax wasn't able to type specimens taken from the students. Because swine flu is so new, most laboratories don't have tests to identify them, and they show up as untypeable influenza A when tests are run.

“That alerted us that this could be something different,” he said.

The samples were sent to the national biological laboratory in Winnipeg where they were confirmed as swine flu.

While closing the school is an option, Dr. Strang said there are advantages to keeping those people who are sick isolated in one place.

“Perhaps the best place to manage them is to keep them in school and you can monitor them and manage them there,” he said.

The illness has proven itself to be potentially deadly. Up to 86 people have died in Mexico as a result of swine flu. About 1,300 have been diagnosed with the sickness since April 13.

Air Canada announced Sunday it was waiving “change” fees for customers who had reservations for travel to and from Mexico City, up to April 30th.

In Calgary, WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said for now, the airline wasn't changing its policy but was closely monitoring the situation.

Several U.S. airlines, including U.S. Airways and Continental Airlines, will also waive penalties for travellers who want to change bookings to Mexico City because of the flu outbreak.

A spokesman for The Greater Toronto Airports Authority said that for now, it wasn't screening passengers returning from vacations or business in Mexico at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

But GTAA spokeswoman Trish Krale said emergency workers were taking extra precautions by wearing masks and gloves when responding to any ill passenger who had been in Mexico in the past couple of weeks.

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon told CTV the federal cabinet has set up an operations committee and has been monitoring the swine flu situation closely.

Foreign Affairs has posted information on its website on the health situation in Mexico but is not telling Canadians to stay away from the country.

Ontario health officials are monitoring eleven individuals who have recently travelled to Mexico and who are experiencing “mild” symptoms associated with the outbreak, a spokesman for the Ministry of Health said on Sunday. At this point, there are no confirmed cases of the virus in Ontario, he said.

The spokesman also said lab results obtained over the weekend have confirmed that a Crown attorney in Cornwall, Ont., does not have the swine flu. Guy Simard, 47, returned from Mexico last month with a mysterious illness, but has since recovered.

With reports from The Canadian Press and Karen Howlett

[Orion]

Swine flu case confirmed in Spain

The first case of swine flu has been confirmed in Europe.

A male patient in south-eastern Spain has tested positive for the virus and 17 people are under investigation, the Spanish health ministry has said.

European Union health ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to discuss the outbreak, which has killed more than 100 people in Mexico.

The EU's Health Commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou, has advised against non-essential travel to any affected areas.

Besides Mexico and Spain, there have also been confirmed cases in the US and Canada. Suspected cases are being investigated in the UK, Brazil, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.

"Personally, I'd try to avoid non-essential travel to the areas which are reported to be in the centre of the cluster," Ms Vassiliou said.

The precaution would "minimise the personal risk and to reduce the potential risk to spread the infection to other people", she added.

An EU spokesman later said it was not yet advising against travel to Spain because there had not been any cases of transmission there.

But Germany's largest tour operator, TUI, said it was suspending all trips to Mexico City as a precaution - though holidays to other parts of Mexico would continue as normal.

'Not serious'

At a news conference in Madrid, Spanish Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez confirmed a male patient at a hospital in Almansa in the south-eastern province of Albacete had tested positive for the virus.

The 23-year-old man had arrived home from Mexico with a fever last Wednesday, and was isolated in a hospital ward on Saturday night, she added.

Ms Jimenez said the patient was being treated in accordance with World Health Organization (WHO) procedures, and that his condition was not serious.

"The situation is under control," she said.

At least 17 further suspected cases are under investigation in Spain, in locations ranging from Madrid to Mallorca, Barcelona to the Basque Country.

The patients concerned have all recently returned from Mexico. None of the cases is thought to be life threatening.

The health minister said it was now an "urgent priority" for different regions of the country to share information - stressing that Spain had sufficient supplies of anti-viral medicines.

Two patients in Scotland are under observation after returning from Mexico with flu-like symptoms. Scotland's Health Secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, said their condition gave no cause for concern.

Four people tested for the virus in France have been given the all-clear by doctors, French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot has said.

The WHO has said the swine flu virus could be capable of mutating into a more dangerous strain, but officials say they need more information on the virus to determine the threat it poses.

They are advising all countries to be vigilant for seasonally unusual flu or pneumonia-like symptoms among their populations - particularly among young healthy adults, a characteristic of past pandemics.

The H1N1 virus is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans, but the newly detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

There is currently no vaccine for the new strain, but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication.

'Maximum co-operation'

Earlier, the European Commission convened an emergency meeting of the health ministers from all the EU's 27 member states on Thursday to discuss growing concern about the outbreak.

"The commission is following the situation concerning the swine influenza very closely, internally together with the member states, and internationally in co-operation with the World Health Organization," said Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

"We will continue to assess the information we are getting from the experts, evaluate the potential danger and decide together with member states on the measures to take."

Further details about Thursday's meeting have to be worked out by the Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency.

The commission's director-general for health and consumer protection, Robert Madelin, said close co-ordination between EU members was the most effective way to tackle any pandemic.

"If we do not co-ordinate, individual regions and countries take measures which are inconsistent and create huge economic and personal costs," he told a news conference in Brussels.

"A combined approach is definitely the best response."

Mr Madelin said the EU was "putting in place plans agreed in the last five years, ensuring that the level of risk management is appropriate to the risk - using our 'war-games' experiences".

Source

[Orion]

Here is a map showing the distribution of the infected areas and the areas where infection is suspected:



Source