Yemen still free of H1N1 virus: Health Ministry says
The Source: sabanews.net - 13/06/2009
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Ministry of Public Health and Population
announced on Saturday that Yemen is still free of any confirmed cases of swine flue (H1N1 virus).A statement issued by the Ministry said that it spares no efforts to encounter any development in this field.A UN health official has declared that Swine flu is now "formally a pandemic".World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Margaret Chan declared Last Thursday, after holding an emergency meeting with flu experts, moving to phase 6 — the WHO's highest alert level — which means a pandemic is under way. The new designation was a result of the global "spread of the virus," not its severity, she said."The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," Chan said in Geneva.Chan called on speeding vaccine production and spurred government spending to combat the first global flu epidemic in 41 years. Thursday's announcement by the WHO doesn't mean the virus is any more lethal — only that its spread is considered unstoppable.The Virus was first detected in late April in Mexico and the United States, swine flu has reached 74 countries, infecting nearly 29,000 people. Swine influenza (also called H1N1 flu) is an infection of a host animal by any one of several specific types of microscopic organisms called "swine influenza virus".A swine influenza virus (SIV) is any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is usually hosted by (is endemic in) pigs.
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