The new influenza A(H1N1) strain killed its first patient in Canada, making it the third country after Mexico and the US to report a death from the virus that has made more than 3,400 people in 28 countries ill.
The chief medical officer in the Canadian province of Alberta said on Friday that the woman in her 30s who died on April 28 had not traveled to Mexico, the epicenter of the swine flu outbreak, which suggests a more sustained spread of the infection.
Japan and Australia confirmed their first cases yesterday, although there have been no deaths in either country.
The Canadian woman’s death raised the confirmed global toll from the virus to 48.
Alberta was also where a herd of pigs became infected with the H1N1 swine flu, apparently infected by a man who had traveled to Mexico.
The WHO kept its global pandemic alert at 5 out of 6 because the new virus was not spreading rapidly outside North America, where US officials expect it to spread to all 50 states.
Japan said its first three confirmed cases were a man in his 40s and two teenagers who had spent time in Canada.
Australia’s first case was a 28-year-old woman who returned on a flight from Los Angeles on Thursday. Health officials said the woman had shown flu symptoms while traveling in the US last month, but she had since recovered. Passengers on the same flight were being contacted.
In Mexico, authorities reported one more death, based on lab tests of patients who died in past days, to raise the total to 45. A quarter of the dead were obese, the government said.
The virus has also killed two people in the US, where President Barack Obama said: “We’re seeing that the virus may not have been as virulent as we at first feared, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 1,639 US cases on Friday, up from 896 on Thursday, a jump that has been expected as a backlog of lab tests were confirmed. The Mexican case total climbed to 1,364 from 1,204.
Global figures stood at at least 3,416 cases, according to the WHO, the CDC and national health authorities.
In Asia, countries whose health diplomacy skills were honed by SARS in 2003 and ongoing outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza pledged to boost drug stockpiles, share essential supplies and tighten surveillance against what they called an “imminent health threat” to the region.
“We cannot afford to let our guard down,” ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told a meeting of health ministers from China, Japan, South Korea and the 10-member association.
In Hong Kong, authorities said a Mexican man confirmed as the city’s only case had been released from hospital. Hong Kong imposed a week-long quarantine on almost 300 guests and staff at a hotel where the man had stayed.
Those people were released late on Friday. Criticized by some for its drastic response, Hong Kong also won praise in other quarters for its response to the threat.
In Mexico, where diabetes is the nation’s leading cause of death, officials said 24 percent of the dead were obese.
Diabetes was associated with many of the victims, as were cardiovascular problems such as angina and high blood pressure, Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told a news conference.
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