Epidemics

With the death toll climbing, Mexican authorities at the center of an international swine flu epidemic struggled Monday to piece together its lethal march, with attention focusing on a 4-year-old boy and a pig farm. The boy, who survived the illness, has emerged as Mexico's earliest known case of the never-before-seen virus, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said Monday. It provides an important clue to the unique strain's path. The boy lived near a pig farm run by a U.S.

Reeling from a rash of drug-world violence and the effects of the global recession, Mexico's tourism is now taking a beating from the swine flu outbreak that is suspected in the deaths of 149 people and prompted the closing of theme parks, soccer stadiums and other public places. The country's benchmark IPC stock index plunged 3.3% on Monday, and the peso slumped as the ramifications of the outbreak filtered through the business and tourist community.

Influenza is widespread in most of the United States, with the incidence continuing to increase in some states and to decline very slightly in others, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. The infections are "overwhelmingly" pandemic H1N1 influenza, commonly known as swine flu. The flu season generally lasts well into May, so many months of uncertainties lie ahead, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, speaking at a morning news conference. Shipments of intranasal swine flu vaccines to providers have begun, and vaccinations began Monday in several states, with a priority for healthcare providers and young children.

On Long Island, N.Y., hospitals are scrambling to bring extra workers in to handle a 50% surge in visitors to emergency rooms. In Galveston, Texas, the local hospital ran out of flu testing kits after being overwhelmed with patients worried about having contracted swine flu. At Loma Linda University Medical Center near San Bernardino, emergency room workers have set up a tent in the parking lot to handle a crush of similar patients.

International officials Saturday declared the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the U.S. a "public health emergency" as new cases were reported on both sides of the border and fears grew of a possible global epidemic. The Mexican government indicated that the outbreak was more severe than originally acknowledged, announcing that more than 1,300 people are believed to have been infected.

The World Health Organization on Thursday acknowledged what many health experts have been saying for weeks: The outbreak of the novel H1N1 virus is a pandemic. "The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic," Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, said in a Geneva teleconference. "This virus is now unstoppable."

An outbreak of swine flu that may have killed as many as 60 people prompted authorities in Mexico City to close schools Friday throughout the sprawling city of 20 million and order emergency health measures in an attempt to contain the disease. In the United States, officials said they had found one new case in San Diego, bringing the number of U.S. cases to eight. All have recovered fully.

A mysterious die-off of hundreds of crows throughout New York state has been linked to the avian reovirus, a pathogen that has threatened the poultry industry in the past, relentlessly sweeping through flocks, state wildlife officials said Thursday. The virus is not likely to jump the species barrier to infect humans. However, state health officials are taking no chances, and scientists at Wadsworth Center, a division of the state Health Department, were studying the virus.

Health authorities here have launched a massive vaccination campaign as a yellow fever outbreak has panicked residents and sparked fierce criticism of the government's handling of the crisis. Almost 1 million people have been vaccinated in this landlocked nation of 6.5 million, officials said. An aircraft carrying 2 million additional doses of vaccine from France touched down Sunday, local media reported.

Brazil is booming. The currency is soaring, people are buying houses and cars at a record pace, and global financiers are keen to invest. The country seems poised to acquire official First World status. But residents of this self-proclaimed city of wonders are worried and angry about a Third World affliction -- dengue fever, the tropical disease spreading in epidemic fashion here.