In Chile, ER visits have tripled and waiting times in public hospitals are seven hours or more.
Epidemiologists fear that the novel H1N1 virus may exchange genetic information with other flu viruses while it is working its way through the Southern Hemisphere, and develop a greater pathogenicity when it returns to the north this fall, but so far that is not happening, said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.
In a news conference in Moscow on Thursday, she said that "the virus is still very stable. . . . But we all know the influenza virus is highly unpredictable and has great potential for mutation."
One surprising victim of the virus is a pig in Argentina. Jorge Amaya, director of the animal health and sanitation service there, said that the animal had recovered and that other pigs were being tested for the virus. He said he thinks the pig caught it from a human.
That was the initial theory when researchers found the virus in a Canadian herd early in the pandemic, but tests showed that it was different from the one that had infected their caretaker. No one knows how the pigs became infected.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been monitoring pigs throughout this country for signs of the virus, but has reported no infections.
Some help for the upcoming winter flu season is on the way. The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis said Thursday that it had begun large-scale production of a vaccine against the novel H1N1 virus. It did not say how many doses it was preparing, and noted that it was still producing seasonal flu vaccine for the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
The company has the capacity to make 270 million doses of vaccine a year at its three plants, two in the United States and one in France. The novel H1N1 vaccine has to be tested before it can be used.
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thomas.maugh@latimes.com
