Swine Flu Update – April 30 – Daily Growth of U.S. Cases Slows, Mexico Still Wigging Out
Flu prompts shutdowns in Texas, Mexico – New York Times- Real-Time Swine Flu Blog – The Guardian (U.K.)
This blog has short, informative posts throughout the day on what’s going on around the world with the flu.
- Mexico: Number of new cases stabilizing – Houston Chronicle
Jose Angel Cordova says he hopes that trend will continue and that a vaccine will be available in six months.
He says Mexico has 260 confirmed swine flu cases, including 12 deaths. But he says he’ll stop updating his count of suspected cases and deaths, which had stood at about 2,500 and 168.
- Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild – Los Angeles Times
Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this strain could mutate at any point — becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.
“This virus doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus,” which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.
