SWINE flu is spreading more widely than official figures indicate, with outbreaks in Europe and Asia showing it has gained a foothold in at least three regions.
One in 20 cases is being officially reported in the US, meaning more than 100,000 people have probably been infected nationwide with the new H1N1 flu strain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the UK, the virus might be 300 times more widespread than health authorities had said, the Independent on Sunday reported.
Japan, which has reported the most cases in Asia, began reopening schools at the weekend after health officials said serious medical complications had not emerged in those infected. The virus was now spreading in the community in Australia, Jim Bishop, the nation’s chief medical officer, said yesterday.
“I think we will see the number rise,” Bishop told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Monday after confirming the nation’s 17th case and saying test results were pending on 41 others.
“This is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint.”
Forty-six countries have confirmed 12,515 cases, including 91 deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s latest tally.
Almost four of every five cases were in Mexico and the US, where the pig-derived strain was discovered last month. Most of those infected experience an illness similar to that of seasonal flu. The main difference is that the new H1N1 strain is persisting outside the Northern Hemisphere winter.
“While we are seeing activities decline in some areas, we should expect to see more cases, more hospitalizations and perhaps more deaths over the weeks ahead and possibly into the summer,” Anne Schuchat, CDC’s interim deputy director for science and public health program, told reporters on a May 22 conference call.
The US had officially reported 6,552 probable and confirmed cases, Schuchat said.
“These are just the tip of the iceberg. We are estimating more than 100,000 people probably have this virus now in the US.”
There had been nine deaths and more than 300 known hospitalizations, she said. The fatalities exclude a woman in her 50s who died in New York over the weekend.
China reported cases in Shanghai and the eastern province of Zhejiang on Monday, taking its tally of confirmed infections to 12.
Taiwan confirmed the island’s first domestically transmitted case and reported two imported infections, giving it nine.
South Korea confirmed 12 more cases, bringing its total to 22, while the Philippines confirmed a second infection on Sunday.
Russia’s health ministry confirmed the country’s second case, in a man who honeymooned in the Dominican Republic. He returned from the Caribbean May 18 and was hospitalized two days later in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow, Gennady Onishchenko, head of the ministry’s public health department, said on state television today. His wife wasn’t infected.
Japan has the most cases outside North America, with 335 as of yesterday, according to the health ministry.
Chile’s tally reached 74 after 19 cases were recorded yesterday, while Argentina’s total increased by three to five.
Eighteen European countries have confirmed 349 cases, a third of whom were probably infected in their home country, the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a report Sunday.
The UK and Spain had the most reported cases, with 133 each. About 60 percent of cases in the UK were linked to “in-country transmission,” ECDC said.
Thousands of people had caught the virus in the UK and suffered mild symptoms, or none at all, over the past weeks, John Oxford, professor of virology at the University of London, told The Independent. –Bloomberg
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