H1N1 Flu Not Yet Gone

The World Health Organization announced Thursday that although the number of H1N1 flu cases around the world is declining, the virus has not disappeared yet.

More than 57 million Americans have become ill from the H1N1 influenza virus and nearly 11,700 have died, according to estimates released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the new figures show the H1N1 pandemic virus is still spreading, they also reflect a slowdown in the transmission of the illnesses since last fall. The CDC had last estimated about 47 million Americans had been sickened, 213,000 were hospitalized and almost 10,000 had died through mid-November.

The new figures estimate the number of illnesses from April—when the new H1N1 influenza virus was first discovered—through Jan. 14.

Dr Keiji Fukuda, the special adviser to the WHO’s director-general on pandemic influenza, said the number of cases overall is declining, but some regions are still dealing with this flu, noting that the highest levels of activity are in Northern Africa, Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia. He also said the virus has made its way to Western Africa, specifically Senegal, which is reporting 14 cases.

“The virus has not disappeared and is continuing to cause disease and deaths in many parts of the world,” Fukuda said. He pointed out that there have been more than 15,000 laboratory-confirmed deaths worldwide so far and that the true toll of this disease won’t be known for another year or two.

While health officials have yet to declare the end of the influenza pandemic, a new round of widespread illness is increasingly unlikely now that a substantial portion of the American population has been either sickened by or vaccinated against the H1N1 pandemic virus. About 70 million people have been vaccinated.

So the WHO will not say the pandemic is over, but at the end of this month a committee of scientists will meet to determine whether we’ve entered into a transitional period, which indicates that the end of this specific flu outbreak is near.

It’s interesting to note that while some countries are talking about having too much H1N1 vaccine, 95 countries are still interested in getting the vaccine, according to the WHO.