News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Low levels of flu activity across the United States resemble a summer pattern, while globally only sporadic pandemic flu activity is occurring with the most active areas in parts of the Caribbean and Central America, according to updates today.

(CIDRAP News) – Pandemic H1N1 influenza activity decreased for the fourth consecutive week, though the percentage of deaths from pneumonia and influenza rose a bit above the epidemic threshold, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today.

(CIDRAP News) – After delaying action for weeks as the novel H1N1 influenza virus took hold in far-flung parts of the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) today declared a full-fledged pandemic, formally recognizing that the virus is becoming a global contagion.

(CIDRAP News) – The global novel H1N1 influenza situation is drawing closer to the status of a true pandemic but is not there yet, the World Health Organization's (WHO's) lead spokesman on the issue said today.

"Globally we believe we're in phase 5 but are getting closer to phase 6," said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO assistant director-general for health security and the environment, referring to the WHO's pandemic alert phases.

(CIDRAP News) – The revelation that samples of the influenza virus that caused the flu pandemic of 1957-58 were inadvertently sent to thousands of laboratories has raised fears of a new pandemic and triggered an urgent effort to destroy the samples.