OTTAWA: An elderly woman in western Alberta province has become the first person to die of swine flu in Canada, health authorities said yesterday. “We have our first fatality in Alberta that is associated with the H1N1 flu,” Alberta’s chief medical officer Andre Corrivea said.
The announcement came as the World Health Organization (WHO) said that 25 countries have reported 2,500 confirmed swine flu cases, including four new cases in Brazil. “As of 2 p.m., we have had 25 countries reporting confirmed laboratory cases of A(H1N1). This shows 2,500 cases have been reported, which have resulted in 44 deaths,” said Sylvie Briand, who is acting director of the WHO’s global influenza program.
She added that despite the increase in cases, “we still remain in phase five which means that we have no evidence of community transmissions” in countries outside of the Americas.
Amid the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and the United States, the WHO last week raised its pandemic alert level to phase five on a scale of six, signaling that a pandemic is “imminent.”
At the epicenter of the outbreak in Mexico, authorities reported one more death, based on lab tests of patients who died in days past. The virus has also killed two people in the United States.
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.
Health ministers from the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations, plus China, Japan and South Korea also agreed to set up a “red alert” hotline and rapid response teams to fight the spread of the virus.
In Hong Kong, more than 280 guests and staff were finally allowed to leave a hotel after spending a week in quarantine.
