Nine dead in U.S. of swine flu
A Utah man who died today is the ninth U.S. victim
The worldwide death toll from swine flu had already reached 80 when a man who local officials said died of swine flu succumbed in Salt Lake City Wednesday.
Although the Centers for Disease Control has not yet confirmed that the Utah man died of the H1N1 virus, it has supplied PCR swine flu tests to all U.S. states and Puerto Rico, so at this point CDC confirmation should be just a formality.
Meanwhile, 21 New York City schools—two of them private—have been closed in the wake of the H1N1 epidemic there. An assistant principal died in New York City last Sunday. Within the past few hours, the state of New York has confirmed 299 cases of swine flu, of which 201 are in New York City. 10,243 are infected worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO is said to be watching closely the situation in Japan, where an additional 50 cases have been reported, bringing the total there to 210 confirmed infected. If the spread in Japan reaches epidemic proportions, it may force the WHO to declare a stage 6 pandemic.
Many world leaders are urging the WHO to go slow in declaring a stage 6 situation, suggesting the severity of the flu’s symptoms might be taken into account. However, the WHO’s own rules call it a pandemic when an epidemic occurs outside the continent containing the original epicenter, which in this case means North America.
So an epidemic in Japan would mean, by definition, that the H1N1 virus had achieved the status of a pandemic.
Within the U.S., the tally by state is as follows:
State # of laboratory confirmed cases Deaths Alabama 4 Arizona 182 2 California 191 Colorado 39 Connecticut 24 Delaware 44 Florida 54 Georgia 3 Hawaii 6 Idaho 1 Illinois 487 Indiana 39 Iowa 43 Kansas 36 Kentucky** 10 Louisiana 9 Maine 4 Maryland 23 Massachusetts 88 Michigan 130 Minnesota 7 Missouri 14 1 Nebraska 13 Nevada 9 New Hampshire 4 New Jersey 7 New Mexico 30 New York 190 1 North Carolina 11 Ohio 6 Oklahoma 14 Oregon 17 Pennsylvania 10 Rhode Island 7 South Carolina 32 South Dakota 1 Tennessee 54 Texas 179 3 Utah 63 1* Vermont 1 Virginia 16 Washington 128 1 Washington, D.C. 4 Wisconsin 384 State # of laboratory confirmed cases Deaths Total: 44 2618 9 *Utah death unconfirmed by CDC as of 5-20-09
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