Swine flu from YAHOO

Swine flu hits Asia as Mexico shuts down

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – The first case of swine flu was confirmed in Asia as health experts said a vaccine should be ready in a few months and Mexico said the virus was not as aggressive as originally feared.

Confirmation by Hong Kong authorities that a traveler from Mexico tested positive for A(H1N1) flu virus saw an entire hotel quarantined and sent shivers through the territory which was at the center of the 2003SARS crisis.

Denmark and France also joined the list of affected countries while more cases emerged of victims contracting the virus even though they had not traveled to Mexico.

The Mexican government meanwhile raised its confirmed toll to 16 dead and 381 people infected as the country began a five-day shutdown until Tuesday to halt the virus's spread.
Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said the new count -- up from 12 dead and 300 infected -- did not represent new cases but rather better testing and analysis of a backlog of "probable" cases in the epicenter of the crisis.

"Fortunately the virus is not so aggressive -- it's not a case of avian flu, which had a mortality rate of nearly 70 percent," Cordova told reporters.
He added that the A(H1N1) flu virus was easily treated with anti-viral medicine "if treatment is given from the first day."

Nevertheless, a five-day shutdown of Mexico decreed by President Felipe Calderon that coincided with a traditional May Day long weekend was being mostly observed.
Thousands of Mexicans ignored the instruction, however, heading to their usual beach getaways, where locals were petrified.

"They shouldn't be coming, they're bringing the virus with them," said one resident in the coastal resort ofAcapulco, Edgar Rubio Hernandez.
Cars and at least one bus coming from the capital were reportedly pelted with stones by locals.
A group of around 200 demonstrators also briefly clashed with police in central Mexico City, ignoring a suspension of traditional May Day rallies by unions. There were no arrests or injuries.
Residents of the capital and elsewhere were starting to chafe at measures imposed early in the week to limit the spread of the H1N1 swine flu.

The closure of bars, restaurants, clubs and cinemas had left the capital looking like a ghost town.
The World Health Organization has warned an official pandemic is now imminent, raising its alert level to five out of six on Wednesday, but a senior official at the UN agency said that a vaccine was in the pipelines.

"We have no doubt that making a successful vaccine is possible in a relatively short period of time," Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO Director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research said, adding it may take four to six months.

All the confirmed deaths from the virus have occurred in Mexico except one, a Mexican toddler who died across the border in the United States.

US health officials say they have now confirmed 141 infections in 19 states, while a total of 15 countries have now confirmed cases.
President Barack Obama said he was "optimistic" that US health officials could "effectively" manage the outbreaks of swine flu.
"We don't know for certain that this will end up being more severe" than other strains of seasonal influenza that strike the United States, killing tens of thousands of Americans every year and 250,000 worldwide.
"We are essentially ensuring that in the worst case scenario we can manage this appropriately," Obama said.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the new strain of swine flu does not appear to be as virulent as a 1918 influenza outbreak that is estimated to have killed up to 50 million people worldwide.

Mexico's Cordova noted the flu virus was also not as dangerous as the SARS epidemic that swept through China and 30 other countries in 2003, killing more than 800 people worldwide.
"This (H1N1 flu) virus is considered less deadly," he said.

But Asia was on alert Friday as Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang said that a 25-year-old Mexican man who had tested positive in the Chinese territory had arrived on Thursday from Mexico via Shanghai.
"I will raise the alert level from serious to emergency," Tsang said.

Among the latest cases revealed was that of a nurse in Germany who had treated a patient with the disease, but had not been to Mexico. The nurse subsequently recovered.
Scottish authorities also confirmed the first case of swine flu in Britain involving someone who had not recently traveled to Mexico.

In France Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot said the country's first two cases of swine flu had been confirmed.

Poland and Austria also reported new suspected swine flu cases, including that of a 29-year-old Pole hospitalized in Warsaw after returning from the United States, where he spent time in a jail with Mexican inmates.

Most cases outside Mexico have involved only mild symptoms of the illness that can be easily treated with existing flu medicines, and some experts have suggested the virus may have weakened as it was carried outside the country.