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Swine Flu - Is history repeating itself?

As suspected it is human to human transmission Swine Flu Has Been Transmitted Between People in U.S., WHO Says c.2009 Bloomberg News By Joshua Fellman April 28 (Bloomberg) – There has been confirmed human-to- human transmission of swine flu in the U.S., Hans Troedsson, the World Health Organization’s chief representative, told reporters in Beijing today.

 

dun scare ppl lah.....u wanna TALK DOWN MKT har? :P anyway already in DEEP RED in MOST if not ALL stock mkts now...hee :D

ticklish8      ( Date: 28-Apr-2009 16:16) Posted: Another scientist make doomsday prediction Russian scientist warns of “very high risk” of global swine flu pandemic     ml-njc/cb/rom  ALERT-¥  AFP 280814 GMT APR 09

 

Another scientist make doomsday prediction

Russian scientist warns of “very high risk” of global swine flu pandemic
    ml-njc/cb/rom
 ALERT-¥
 AFP 280814 GMT APR 09

 

HK market kena flu virus:

 

HONG KONG, April 28, 2009 (AFP) - Hong Kong share prices closed 1.92
percent lower on Tuesday, as worries over swine flu continued to knock investor
confidence, dealers said.
    The benchmark Hang Seng Index closed down 285.31 points at 14,555.11.
Turnover was 56.24 billion Hong Kong dollars (7.21 billion US).

 

Alamak Thailand also "kena"... getting nearer.... phew...

April 28 (Bloomberg) – A 42-year-old Thai woman is under observation for possible swine flu at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn Hospital, said
Thirapong Charoenvit, deputy director.

 

 

china authority to investigate?? u mean COVERUP? haha...given it's track record...likely coverup few mth back? :D 

ticklish8      ( Date: 28-Apr-2009 15:58) Posted: Outbreak in Shaanxi, China? April 28 (Bloomberg) – The World Health Organization can’t rule out swine flu as the cause of an outbreak of disease in Shaanxi province, Hans Troedsson, the global health agency’s chief representative, told reporters in Beijing today. While there are no confirmed or probable cases of swine flu in China, there are a wide range of suspected cases of people with flu-like symptoms, Troedsson said. China is taking steps to investigate, he said.

 

Outbreak in Shaanxi, China?

April 28 (Bloomberg) – The World Health Organization can’t rule out swine flu as the cause of an outbreak of disease in Shaanxi province, Hans Troedsson, the global health agency’s chief representative, told reporters in Beijing today. While there are no confirmed or probable cases of swine flu in China, there are a wide range of suspected cases of people with flu-like symptoms, Troedsson said. China is taking steps to investigate, he said.

 

Australia... now probable 45....

SYDNEY, April 28, 2009 (AFP) - Australian authorities said Tuesday they were investigating 45 possible cases of swine flu and cautioned against travel to Mexico, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned of a possible pandemic. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd vowed to devote “all necessary resources” to the evolving flu threat, as possible cases of the disease more than doubled, covering all but one of the country’s states and territories. Health Minister Nicola Roxon said it was “at least possible, if not likely” that cases of the virus would be confirmed in coming days, and Australia’s health officials were on high alert.

 

In South Korea also

SEOUL, April 28, 2009 (AFP) - A South Korea woman just back from a trip to
Mexico has a “probable” case of swine flu, a health agency said Tuesday without
officially confirming the infection.
    The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the 51-year-old
woman returned home on April 26 after travelling through Mexico.
    It said she has been isolated in a state-designated hospital for treatment
and surveillance.
    The centre said all 315 others who travelled on the same flight are being
traced and tested, while 40 people who work with the woman have been given
injections of anti-viral treatments.

 

Spread to China...

 BEIJING, April 28, 2009 (AFP) - Authorities are investigating several
suspected human cases of swine flu in China, the World Health Organization’s
representative in the country said Tuesday.
    “There are several suspected cases under investigation,” Hans Troedsson
told reporters.
    ph-kma/sst/cc

 

It was timely that health authorities took the "pre-emptive" steps against the pig flu virus. Had there been any neglect, I think there would be tremendous disaster that the world would ever have seen given the fact that the virus is more deadly than the initially unknown SAR.  Pig flu was a known virus that our first generation Singaporeans would have come to apprehension during those days.  Of course it was contained just as the chicken flu was contained.  My hope is that those responsible for public health work harder for the interest of health itself.  

 

US now 50 cases:

   The number of U.S. cases rose to 50, the result of further
testing at a New York City school, although none was fatal. Other
U.S. cases have been reported in Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California.
Worldwide there were 79 confirmed cases, including six in Canada,
one in Spain and two in Scotland.

 

Latest: Death toll increase

"Probable” swine flu death toll in Mexico up to 152: minister
    

 

Source of the infection?

If you read the article from Los Angeles Times, look eerily similar with China with Sars, slow to come clean about the infection....

By Tracy Wilkinson and Cecilia Sanchez= (c) 2009, Los Angeles Times=
MEXICO CITY – With the death toll climbing, Mexican authorities at
the center of a global flu epidemic struggled Monday to piece together
its lethal march as attention focused on a 4-year-old boy and a pig
farm.
    The boy, who survived, has emerged as the earliest known victim in
Mexico of the never-before-seen virus, Mexican Health Secretary Jose
Angel Cordova said Monday. The boy’s case provides an important clue
of the strain’s path.
    The boy lived near a pig farm run by a U.S.-Mexican company,
Granjas Carroll, in the municipality of Perote, in Veracruz state on
the Gulf of Mexico coast. He contracted the disease April 2, Cordova
said, and was part of a group of residents who came down with what at
the time was labeled a particularly bad case of the flu.
    Only one sample from the group, that belonging to the boy, was
preserved and re-tested – only after other cases of the new strain
were later confirmed elsewhere, Cordova said. The boy had the same
disease. It is unknown how many more of the hundreds of people who
fell sick around April 2 in Perote also were infected by the more
virulent strain.
    In another ominous disclosure, officials said the first confirmed
fatality of the disease, from an impoverished state neighboring
Veracruz, worked as a door-to-door census-taker and might have had
contact with scores of people.
    Residents in the Perote hamlet known as La Gloria, since mid-March,
have complained that contamination from the pig farm was tainting
their water and giving them respiratory infections. In one
demonstration in early April, they carried signs with pictures of pigs
crossed out with an X and the word: Peligro – Danger. Residents told
reporters at the time that more than half of the town’s 3,000
inhabitants were sick and that three children under 2 years old had
died.
    Local health officials mobilized when the outbreak was first
reported, but they gave a different account: The infection might have
started with a migrant farmer who returned from work in the U.S. and
gave the disease to his wife, who in turn proved contagious to other
women in the community.
    Granjas Carroll, which claims to be Mexico’s leading pig producer
at a million heads a year, issued a statement Monday saying none of
its employees have shown signs of illness and noting that the sick are
people who had no contact with its pigs. It is but one of numerous
farms in the region.
    The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization announced
Monday it is sending a team of experts to inspect pig farms in Mexico.
The FAO’s chief veterinary officer, Joseph Domenech, said the teams
would attempt to determine whether the new strain is circulating among
pigs and then trace linkage to human populations.
    The first fatality from the disease that the government has
confirmed occurred April 13. A 39-year-old woman, Maria Adela
Gutierrez, died in the southern city of Oaxaca, capital of the state
bordering Veracruz.
    Gutierrez was a census-taker for the government’s tax board,
suggesting she could have had contact with many people at her most
contagious point, before being hospitalized. But Martin Vazquez
Villanueva, the regional health secretary in Oaxaca, denied local news
reports that said she had infected 20 people, plus her husband and
children.
    The Mexican government has parsed out information about the
outbreak and its victims only in bits and pieces, refusing to detail
who the dead are and where and when they died. For the second
consecutive day, the government was on the defensive against
criticisms that it acted too slowly to contain the virus and to alert
the public to the dangers.
    “We never had this type of epidemic, this type of virus in the
world,” Cordova, the health secretary, said at a news conference
Monday. “We don’t know how many days this will go on because it’s the
first time in the world this virus has appeared.”
    The government took the extraordinary step of ordering all schools
in the nation closed until May 6. Separately, the World Health
Organization raised its pandemic alert level, and the U.S. and Europe
advised against travel to Mexico.
    Cordova said every state in Mexico is now reporting suspected cases
of the virus, a major expansion of the spread of the disease. Just
Thursday, the government reported the disease in Mexico City, the
adjacent state of Mexico and nearby San Luis Potosi.
    Cordova said this new form of swine flu is now suspected in the
deaths of 149 people and that 1,995 possible cases have been reported
at Mexican hospitals, all patients suffering serious pneumonia; of
those, 172 have been confirmed as the new strain, he said.
    “We are at the most critical moment of the epidemic,” he said,
adding that the number of cases would continue to rise

 

With Singapore such a travel hub its bound to land here soon, just an example in the beginning of May there is the biggest oil show in the world @ Houston (OTC) there are always loads of people from here going over, & thousands from everywhere else in the world all converging there, the potentials are huge. Travel with care.

 

Swine-Flu Warning Raised as Virus Crosses Continents

 

 

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- The World Health Organization, acknowledging the growing threat of swine flu, raised its global pandemic alert, saying the disease is no longer containable.

The alarm level, raised to 4 from 3, is at its highest since the warning system was adopted in 2005, and the virus has been confirmed in the U.K., Mexico, the U.S., Canada and Spain. The emphasis for health officials worldwide should be treating patients and strengthening preparations for outbreaks, said Keiji Fukuda, assistant director-general for health security and environment. The Geneva-based WHO isn’t recommending travel restrictions.

Swine flu cases in the U.S. doubled to 40, and Mexico’s toll of flu-related deaths reached 149. Fears among global health officials about other outbreaks spurred an emergency meeting of the WHO. U.S. officials yesterday recommended that nonessential travel to Mexico be avoided, the European Union has told travelers to avoid outbreak areas, and Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are screening air passengers.

The increased threat level “signifies that we have taken a step closer” to pandemic, Fukuda said in a conference call with reporters yesterday. “It is also possible that as the situation evolves over the next few days we could move into Stage 5.”

A pandemic is an unexpected outbreak of disease that spreads from person to person across borders. Pandemics occur when a new influenza A-type virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and spreads internationally. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that a moderate pandemic would kill 209,000, and a flu as severe as the 1918 outbreak would kill 1.9 million.

Not Inevitable

The raised level indicates health officials need to prepare for a pandemic, though it’s not inevitable, Fukuda said. This is the first time risk has risen above level 3 on the WHO’s six- step alert system since the current scale was adopted.

“The situation is very fluid, very dynamic, and it is rapidly evolving,” said Tim Uyeki, an epidemiologist in the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention’s flu division. “The cases in the U.S. don’t have any links to contact with pigs. This appears to be ongoing human-to-human transmission.”

Production of influenza vaccine for seasonal outbreaks, which U.S. health officials have said is ineffective against the new flu, should continue, Fukuda said. WHO is working with companies to prepare for a swine-flu vaccine, and would help produce such a vaccine if the outbreak becomes a pandemic, he said.

“We don’t think that any of the existing vaccines are effective,” said Richard Besser, the acting head of the CDC.

No Vaccine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed emergency authorizations yesterday that will permit the CDC to use an unapproved lab test for swine flu and more dosing options than currently recommended for influenza treatments Tamiflu and Relenza.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said 25 percent of “courses of treatments” of drugs, known as antivirals, were being released from U.S. stockpiles. In all, there are 50 million courses, she said. Among those are Tamiflu, sold by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG, and Relenza, from London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

There are enough stockpiles of Tamiflu to meet current demand, said Roche spokesman Terence Hurley. Roche has the capacity to manufacture, over one year, enough courses of treatment for 400 million people, Hurley said in a telephone interview. A fifth of those treatments would be made in the U.S.

Available Treatments

The WHO has told Roche that it appears Tamiflu would work against this strain of the virus, Hurley said yesterday.

Glaxo has increased production of its antiviral Relenza and is in contact with the WHO and CDC, spokeswoman Sarah Alspach said yesterday.

President Barack Obama said yesterday the emergence and spread of swine flu in the U.S. merits heightened concern “but it’s not a cause for alarm.” He declared a public emergency after 40 U.S. cases were confirmed in California, Kansas, New York, Ohio and Texas, according to the CDC. New Jersey has identified five probable cases, the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services said yesterday in a statement on its Web site. All five cases are awaiting confirmation by the CDC, the department said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an emergency declaration as a “precautionary tool” to free resources to monitor and respond to the spread of the virus, Obama said yesterday in a speech to the National Academy of Sciences in Washington.

New York Outbreak

New York City has 28 confirmed cases of swine flu, all from St. Francis Preparatory School in Queens, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday at a news conference. All the cases were mild and as many as 100 may ultimately be found at the school, the mayor said.

The number of confirmed cases in Mexico is 26, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said yesterday on a conference call. Testing has been limited, and U.S. and international experts are being sent to help track the disease, WHO and CDC said. Mexico’s Health Minister Jose Cordova said as many as 149 people may have died in Mexico from an outbreak of swine flu, though the cause of the deaths hasn’t been confirmed.

Eight people in Canada contracted swine flu, said Margaret Chan, World Health Organization chief. New Zealand officials are monitoring 56 people, South Korea has a suspected case and the U.K. confirmed two people contracted the disease.

Travel restrictions are unnecessary and based on political, not medical considerations, Chan said.

Economic Standstill?

“By definition, pandemic influenza will move around the world,” Chan said on the call yesterday. “Does that mean we are going to close every country? Does that mean we are going to bring the world’s economy to a standstill?

“We know from past experience that transmission of influenza or the spread of new influenza disease would not be stopped by closing borders and would not be stopped by restricting movement of people or goods,” Chan said.

The Mexican government requested that bars, movie theaters and churches be closed in Mexico City. It also extended its school closure to May 6 and may shut down more activities, Mexico’s Cordova said.

Swine flu results in symptoms similar to regular human influenza such as fever, lethargy and cough, and may also cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the CDC. Swine-flu viruses aren’t transmitted by food, and eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe, according to the CDC. There’s no evidence the disease is spread by exposure to “pork or pigs,” WHO’s Fukada said.

Scientists are trying to determine why the virus has been more severe in Mexico. In the U.S. only one person has required hospitalization, said Besser of the CDC.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=aCek5dag8gwA&refer=asia


 

 

  MEXICO CITY, April 27 (Reuters) - A new virus has killed up
to 149 people in Mexico and world health experts moved closer
on Monday to declaring it the first flu pandemic in 40 years as
more people were infected in the United States and Europe.
    The World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert for
the new flu strain to phase 4, indicating a significantly
increased risk of a global outbreak of a serious disease.
    The last such outbreak, a “Hong Kong” flu pandemic in 1968,
killed about 1 million people.
    Although deaths have only occurred in Mexico, the new flu
virus has infected more than 40 people in five states in the
United States, including 20 at a New York City school.
    Reeling from a crisis that is threatening to slash tourism
and trade, Mexico said it would not order a mass closure of
businesses to try to contain the infection. “Economic activity
must continue,” Labor Minister Javier Lozano told reporters.
    The streets of Mexico City, which is bearing the brunt of
the crisis, were a sea of blue surgical face masks as most
residents preferred to cover up against infection than stay
home from work. Cafes, bars, gyms and even law courts were
closed, however, and the city was eerily quiet.
    Mayor Marcelo Ebrard stopped short of closing the packed
subway system, saying: “We have to exhaust every avenue before
we resort to a complete economic paralysis of the city.”
    The virus is not caught from eating pig meat products but
several countries banned U.S. pork imports. Airline stocks were
hit as investors worried about the impact on travel.
    Spain became the first country in Europe to confirm a case
of swine flu when a man who returned from a trip to Mexico last
week was found to have the virus.
    Texas confirmed six cases of the flu and California has 11
people infected. Canada has six cases, all of them mild.
    Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said the first case that
alerted authorities to a possible rogue flu strain appeared in
the southern state of Oaxaca but he said it was too early to
identify the cause or geographical source of the virus.
    Mexican media has speculated the flu may have originated at
a pig farm in the tropical southeastern state of Veracruz.
    CAPITAL HUSHED
    As the death toll in Mexico rose to up to 149, and Cordova
warned the figure would keep rising, Britain, France, Germany
and the United States urged against non-essential travel to
Mexico, which relies on its huge tourism industry as its No. 3
source of foreign currency.
    Airlines, which fly more than 1 million passenger seats in
and out of Mexico’s international airport every week, checked
passengers for flu symptoms, and many wore masks on board.
    Worldwide, seasonal flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000
people in an average year. The new strain is worrying as it
spreads rapidly between humans and there is no vaccine for it.
    Most of the flu fatalities were aged between 20 and 50, an
ominous sign because a hallmark of past pandemics has been the
high rate of fatalities among young adults.
    Fearful Christians paraded a centuries-old statue of Jesus
through Mexico City on Sunday to ask for protection as life in
the normally hectic capital of 20 million people wound down to
a murmur.
    Cinemas were shut and a premiere of the “X-Men Origins:
Wolverine” superhero movie, where brawny Australian actor Hugh
Jackman was due to walk the red carpet, was scrapped.
    Nationwide, 33 million schoolchildren will stay home as
Mexico cancels classes until May 6 to contain the outbreak.
    Analysts say the flu crisis could shave more than half a
percentage point off Mexico’s already recession-bound economy
this year from the dent to retail and tourism.
    Globally, oil prices fell more than 2 percent as investors
feared a new blow to an already fragile global economy. The
MSCI world equity index fell 0.8 percent and U.S. stocks,
especially in the airline and leisure sector, slipped.
    Shares in makers of drugs and vaccines, such as Roche, were
higher.
    A string of countries including Australia, France, Germany,
Norway, Sweden, Israel, Guatemala, Costa Rica and South Korea
were testing suspected cases of the Mexican flu.
    Spain had 26 suspected cases under observation and a New
Zealand teacher and a dozen students who recently traveled to
Mexico were being treated as likely mild cases.
    In the first confirmed cases in Britain, Scotland’s health
minister said two people tested positive for swine flu and were
being treated under isolation near Glasgow.
 (Additional reporting by Jonathan Lynn and Stephanie Nebehay
in Geneva, Maggie Fox in Washington, Catherine Bremer, Helen
Popper, Robin Emmott and Mica Rosenberg in Mexico City; Editing
by Bill Trott)

 

HK Market report HONG KONG, April 28 (Reuters) - Hong Kong shares fell back into negative territory in late morning trade on Tuesday as caution over a possible spread of a swine flu outbreak triggered fresh selling, wiping out the market’s initial gains. In response to the raising of the alert level on swine flu by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Hong Kong health secretary York Chow said early on Tuesday that the city had activated its serious level of response and was “geared towards managing escalating risk”. The benchmark Hang Seng Index slipped 0.07 percent or 12.67 points to 14,829.92. It opened 1.5 percent firmer when ICBC rebounded from a sharp fall after the world’s biggest lender by market value said Allianz and American Express sold shares in the Chinese bank when the lock-up on a portion of its shares expired on Tuesday. The China Enterprises Index of top mainland companies eased 0.40 percent to 8,606.74, off a high of 8,820.07. (Reporting by Nerilyn Tenorio; Editing by Chris Lewis)

 

NZ update:

WELLINGTON, April 28, 2009 (AFP) - The New Zealand government said Tuesday
it was investigating a further possible 56 cases of swine flu among people who
recently returned from Mexico or the United States.
    It follows a weekend announcement that nine high school students and a
teacher who had returned from Mexico had tested positive for influenza A and
were likely to have contracted swine flu.
    Minister of Health Tony Ryall said Tuesday a further 56 people who had
recently returned to New Zealand and had flu-like symptoms were being tested
for influenza A, which is linked to swine flu.
    “These are people who have been in Mexico or the United States in the last
two weeks,” Ryall told a press conference.
    “It’s a time for caution and concern, but not alarm,” he said.
    Earlier Tuesday, the ministry said three people from a separate New Zealand
school group which visited Mexico had tested negative for influenza A.

 

 WHO Raises Global Threat Level as Swine Flu Cases Increase  

WASHINGTON – With the number of swine flu cases and deaths
continuing to mount, the World Health Organization Monday raised its
pandemic threat level one notch, saying the dangerous new virus was
clearly causing sustained community-wide outbreaks.
    The decision came amid another day of rapid, sometimes confusing
developments from around the world, including a rise in the suspected
death toll in Mexico to 149, the confirmation of the first case in
Europe and a doubling of the number of confirmed cases in the United
States. In the first signs that the outbreak could be taking a toll on
the staggering global economy, oil prices, the Mexican peso and
airline stocks all plunged.
    The WHO decision marks the first time the international body has
elevated its official estimation of the threat of an influenza
pandemic using the system, which was revised in the wake of the 2003
SARS outbreak. The assessment is just two notches below the highest
alert level, which marks a full-scale pandemic.
    “We are not there yet. We have taken a step in that direction. But
a pandemic is not considered inevitable at this time,” said Keiji
Fukuda, the WHO’s assistant director general for health security and
environment. “The situation is fluid and the situation continues to
evolve.”
    The level 4 alert could in some circumstances prompt health
authorities to launch massive efforts to contain an outbreak, but
Fukuda said the virus had already spread too widely to make that
realistic.
    “This virus has already spread quite far,” Fukuda said.
    Instead, the move was designed to prompt countries to intensify
efforts to try to minimize the spread of the virus by identifying new
cases and clusters as quickly as possible and taking other measures.
    “Given the current situation, the current focus of efforts should
be on mitigation efforts,” he said.
    Based on the recommendations of a 15-member expert panel it
convened for an emergency meeting in Geneva, the WHO also decided
against seeking to close any international borders, saying that would
be too disruptive. But Fukuda urged people who are sick not to travel
and said travelers who become ill should seek medical attention.
    The agency also said it would work to develop a swine flu vaccine
as quickly as possible, but it rejected proposals to try to deploy a
swine flu vaccine instead of the vaccine already in development for
the next regular flu season.
    The moves came as officials at the epicenter of the outbreak in
Mexico outlined a deteriorating situation. Although the number of
confirmed deaths remained at 20, the suspected death toll rose to 149,
and at least 1,995 people had been hospitalized with pneumonia. The
news prompted officials to shut down schools nationwide. The capital,
Mexico City, where most of the cases have been reported, had already
been brought to a virtual standstill by measures intended to contain
the outbreak.
    U.S. and state health officials, meanwhile, reported that the
number of confirmed cases had more than doubled to 41 and recommended
that Americans put off unnecessary travel to Mexico. “This is out of
an abundance of caution,” said Richard Besser, acting director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
    “We want to be aggressive and take bold action to minimize the
impact on people’s health from this infection,” Besser said during a
briefing with reporters.
    All but one of the new U.S. cases were tied to an outbreak at a
Catholic high school in New York where more than 100 students got sick
last week after several returned from a spring break trip to Mexico.
Eight students were confirmed to have swine flu on Sunday, and at
least 17 more probably have the virus as well, New York officials
said. The new cases are the result of additional testing and not a
sign that the infection is still spreading there, Besser said. He
added that all the cases were mild, except for one that required
hospitalization, and that all the students had recovered.
    New Jersey officials reportedly identified five new suspected
cases. Eight have been confirmed in California, including two that
required hospitalization, along with two in Kansas, one in Ohio and
two in Texas. Confirmed or suspected cases have prompted officials in
New York, Texas, California, South Carolina and Ohio to close schools.
    President Obama said his administration was monitoring the
situation closely. “This is obviously a cause for concern and
requires a heightened state of alert,” he said at an appearance at
the National Academy of Sciences. “But it is not a cause for alarm.”
    U.S. border officials began screening people entering the country
for signs of the disease and handing out cards to everyone arriving
from affected areas, advising them to be on the lookout for signs of
the illness.
    Officials also started shipping millions of doses of antiviral
drugs from the federal government’s strategic stockpile to California,
New York, Texas and other states in case they are needed – action made
possible Sunday when the federal government declared an official
“public health emergency.”
    The Department of Health and Human Services also announced that the
Food and Drug Administration is working with the CDC to distribute
diagnostic tests to state and local public health laboratories by
midweek. And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the
government will allow the FDA to permit the distribution of drugs such
as Tamiflu to populations, such as very young children, who normally
are not encouraged to take them.
    In addition to the government measures, Besser urged businesses to
begin making contingency plans for workers calling in sick and said
individuals should help reduce the chances that the virus will spread
by taking common-sense steps, such as staying home from work or school
if they are sick, washing hands frequently and covering mouths if they
sneeze or cough.
    “Hopefully this outbreak would not progress, but leaning forward
and thinking about what you would do is one of the most important
things individuals and communities can undertake right now,” he said.
    The day started with a warning by the European Union’s health
commissioner against unnecessary travel from Europe to parts of the
United States and Mexico where the disease is circulating.
    The warning followed Spain’s confirmation of its first case,
fueling fears that the virus was spreading to Europe. An additional 20
cases were being investigated in Spain, along with 17 potential cases
in Britain, 13 cases in New Zealand and at least one each in France,
Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Israel.
    “Personally, I would try to avoid nonessential travel to the areas
that are reported to be in the center of the cluster in order to
minimize the personal risk and to reduce the potential risk to spread
the infection,” said Androulla Vassiliou, the E.U. commissioner of
health.
    Vassiliou later said she was simply advising Europeans to avoid
“unnecessary travel” to affected areas in North America.
    The White House, meanwhile, said Mexican authorities did not notify
U.S. officials about the swine flu issue in advance of the president’s
April 16-17 visit, “but we have no reason to believe they withheld
any information they had at the time,” and U.S. officials praised the
Mexican response. “To date, Mexican authorities have been
exceptionally cooperative and forthcoming,” White House homeland
security adviser John Brennan said. “There’s been very strong
cooperation.”
    White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that he is
confident that the administration is ready to handle the crisis even
though dozens of key public health and emergency response jobs in the
administration remain vacant.
    “Our response is in no way hindered or hampered by not having a
permanent secretary at HHS right now,” Gibbs said. “Dr. Besser and
thousands of people both at CDC and throughout HHS are responding to
this. ... We feel confident with the team that is there now.”
   
    Correspondent Joshua Partlow in Mexico and staff writers Anthony
Faiola, Spencer S. Hsu, Michael D. Shear and Ashley Halsey III in
Washington contributed to this report.