Here are this week’s H1N1 updates from the HealthMap team of the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program.
- Serbia, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Finland, Russia, and the U.S. state of North Dakota have all reported their first H1N1 deaths.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that there have been 414,945 confirmed cases of H1N1 worldwide, and nearly 5,000 deaths.
- The WHO’s Director-General Margaret Chan also stated that the pandemic would reach its natural end when enough people had become immunized.
- United States President Barack Obama declared H1N1 (swine flu) a national emergency, as the US death toll surpassed 1,000.
- Also in the United States, manufacturing difficulties are delaying the delivery of the H1N1 vaccine. The CDC said that only 16.1 million out of an expected 30 million doses had been shipped. While H1N1 vaccine shipment is delayed, increases in school closures, hospitalization rates, and 11 more pediatric influenza-related deaths point to an intensifying pandemic throughout the US.
Photo courtesy of: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/News/948015/Government-releases-new-set-swine-flu-ads/
