Swine Flu Update – Sunday, April 26
- U.S. declares public health emergency over Swine Flu – New York Times
Governments around the world stepped up their response to the outbreak, racing to contain the infection amid reports of potential new cases from New Zealand to Hong Kong to Spain, raising concerns about the potential for a global pandemic.
Canada also confirmed six cases of the flu on Sunday, all of them linked to people who had traveled to Mexico.
Health and Homeland Security officials announced steps to release some of the country’s stockpiles of anti-flu drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza. They recommended that local authorities plan for possible school closures and for people with flu-like symptoms to stay at home to reduce the possibility of transmission.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it was too early to say what impact the outbreak could have on efforts to get the economy back on its feet. Spiraling health-care costs are already a huge drain on the economy.
- Fears of Swine Flu pandemic increase – Washington Post
“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.
