Global swine flu cases surge past 10,000

May 21, 2009 - 8:54AM

The number of worldwide swine flu infections has surged past 10,000, as the epidemic gathers pace in the United States and Tokyo records its first case.

The announcement in the Japanese capital that a 16-year-old high school girl had caught (A)H1N1 on a trip to New York underlined the scale of the challenge to contain the virus which has now been recorded in 41 countries.

The number of confirmed swine flu cases now stands at 10,243 and the number of dead at 80, said a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"There is an increase of 413 cases in the past 24 hours, with most in the United States with 346 new cases ... and in Japan there are 51 new cases," spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told journalists at the WHO's Geneva headquarters on Wednesday.

The number of US cases of swine flu has hit 5,710 with eight deaths, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday.

Authorities in Boston shut three schools as a precaution after a growing number of students were infected with the swine flu.

"This morning we have two confirmed cases of the A(H1N1) virus at Boston Latin. We're monitoring all the Boston schools," Susan Harrington, a city health spokeswoman, told reporters.

Schools were also closed in New York, home to the largest outbreak in the United States.

The number of confirmed A(H1N1) infections in Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak, rose to 3,817, health authorities said there, adding 75 people have died.

And as dozens more cases were reported in Japan, Taiwan became the latest Asian government to record a case of the virus on its soil - an Australian doctor who arrived by plane from Hong Kong earlier in the week.

Australia itself reported four new cases, including three young brothers, raising the overall number of confirmed infections to five.

And a Chinese-Canadian became the fifth person in mainland China and the second in Beijing to test positive for swine flu, Xinhua news agency said.

The 21-year-old, who Xinhua said was not a Chinese national, was studying at a college in Toronto prior to arriving in Beijing on May 16.

The mounting crisis has overshadowed proceedings at the WHO's ongoing annual assembly.

The UN organisation has already raised its alert level to five out of a sliding scale of six, indicating that a full-fledged pandemic is imminent.

The top level would indicate sustained community transmission in a second region outside the Americas and the escalating number of cases in Asia has increased the prospects of the red alert being sounded.

Tokyo, whose 36 million inhabitants make it the world's most populous urban area, had been clear of the virus until the announcement about the teenager late Wednesday.

"She is hospitalised in Hachioji and has a fever, cough and a sore throat. But she is recovering well," Hideo Maeda, secretary of the Tokyo welfare and health department told a late night news conference.

Face masks have become ubiquitous on buses, commuter trains and in shopping centres of affected areas in Japan where 267 people have been infected.

Many of the cases have been among school students, prompting authorities to close more than 4,400 schools, colleges and kindergartens for the rest of the week to slow the spread of the virus.

Governments in Asia, where memories of the bird flu crisis remain raw, have been swift to quarantine both locals and foreigners in a bid to stop swine flu in its tracks.

But a group of some 20 foreign tourists held in Tibet over fears an Italian woman with them had swine flu were released Wednesday, after tests showed she was suffering from common influenza, Chinese officials said.

Meanwhile, Egyptian Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali warned of the dangers posed by swine flu to millions of Muslim pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia.

While he could not bar Egypt's estimated 600,000 pilgrims from travelling, as such a decision was up to clerics, Gabali said he could "open quarantines and say: no one will return from Saudi Arabia to his home."