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At total of 50 people have now been diagnosed with swine flu in Wales.
Health officials have confirmed eight new cases, including a 15-year-old boy from Cardiff who has been linked to cases in Somerset.
There are also 28 "clinically presumed" cases of swine flu - household contacts of confirmed cases presumed to have the virus because of their symptoms.
So far 274 people have been under investigation for swine flu in Wales, with 11 still under investigation.
Public health officials have said they expected the number of cases in Wales to rise but people should not be alarmed.
Among the latest cases are a 21-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman, both from Cardiff, who are linked to the spread of the virus in Australia.
CASES of swine flu will peak in Wales in early October, experts have predicted.
It is thought that both the public and private sectors in Wales will be hardest hit in the mid autumn, after the new school and university years have begun.
The predictions come after English Health Secretary Andy Burnham last week warned that 100,000 cases of swine flu will be diagnosed every day in the UK by the end of August.
But the National Public Health Service for Wales (NPHS) believes that Wales is about a month behind England and Scotland, where the vast majority of swine flu cases have been diagnosed.
Dr Roland Salmon, director of the communicable disease surveillance centre at the NPHS, said: “Up to now in the UK, we have seen a doubling of cases every six to seven days.
“It’s a little unclear what’s happening in the rest of the world, but we think that in Canada and elsewhere it still seems to be going up – it’s not clear whether it has peaked in the US.
July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Australian health authorities say a Darwin, Northern Territory, man who contracted swine flu is the country’s 12th death related to the virus.
“A male patient in his early 50s died at the Royal Darwin Hospital earlier today as the combined result of underlying risk factors and H1N1 influenza,” the Department of Health and Ageing said on its Web site today. The Northern Territory has confirmed 17 cases of swine flu in the 24 hours to 5:30 p.m. local time, according to a hospital statement.
LATEST: Official figures show over 50 percent of swine flu patients - where ethnicity is known and the H1N1 virus has been confirmed - are Maori or Pacific Islanders.
It comes as swine flu cases have cracked 1000 in New Zealand for the first time as the Government announced this afternoon it will spend millions securing a swine flu vaccine to protect frontline staff.
Health officials said today it was still "too early" to say whether the pandemic swine flu virus was hitting Polynesians harder than other ethnic groups.
At noon today, of a total of 1059 confirmed cases, 207 were Maori, 212 were Pacific Islanders, and 258 were European.
Other ethnicities among patients with confirmed swine flu totalled 84 while another 298 were of unknown ethnicity.
Of the 761 confirmed swine flu patients for whom ethnicity is known, 27.2 percent were Maori, 27.8 percent Pacific Islanders, 33.9 percent European, and 11 percent other ethnicities, Health Ministry figures show.
In the 2006 census just 14.6 percent of the population were Maori, and 14.7 percent Polynesian.
The deadly swine flu virus has the potential to reach deep into the respiratory system, and even as far as the intestines, according to two new studies on ferrets.
The above findings could explain why the disease's symptoms are different from those of seasonal flu.
The studies were conducted by two separate groups that have been using ferrets to investigate how harmful A(H1N1) influenza virus is, and how easily it is transmitted.
One of the studies was led by Terrence Tumpey at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, whose colleagues put droplets of three different swine flu viruses, and one 'seasonal' flu virus, into the noses of ferrets.
Some ferrets shared cages with other uninfected ferrets, and some were placed in cages next to other ferrets, sharing nothing but the air they breathed.
It was found that the ferrets with swine flu strains lost more weight than those with normal flu, and that the swine flu reached lower down into the lungs of some of the ferrets than normal seasonal flu, penetrating the intestines in some cases.
This tallies with observations in humans that some patients suffered vomiting and diarrhoea.
Man and girl dead in Dewsbury after catching swine flu
Two people in Dewsbury have died after catching swine flue
Published Date: 06 July 2009
A GIRL of nine and a man, believed to be a teacher, have died in Dewsbury after catching swine flu, it was confirmed today. The girl died on Thursday and the man on Sunday.
The deaths in the West Yorkshire town were confirmed today by officials from NHS Kirklees.
The girl who died, Asmaa Hussain, nine, from Scout Hill, Dewsbury, had epilepsy.
It is the second tragedy to hit the family. Her father died two months ago.
The man who died was 42 and lived in the Savile Town area of Dewsbury. He was from a South Asian background. It is believed he suffered from lung and kidney problems.
It is believed that the man was a teacher at the Institute of Islamic Education, a private boarding school in Savile Town, Dewsbury, although NHS Kirklees officials would not comment on this.
The coroner has been informed of both deaths.
The Yorkshire Post understands that there will not be an inquest into the man's death as the coroner has decided that he died from natural causes, although the exact cause of his death has not been publicly released.
A post mortem examination on the girl is expected to be conducted later this week.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said that if the deaths are confirmed as swine flu they will be the sixth and seventh confirmed deaths in the UK.
A spokesperson for NHS Kirklees said: "We can confirm that a child from the Kirklees area, who had swine flu, has died. The child also had serious underlying health issues.
"At this stage, we have no confirmation whether or not swine flu was the cause of death."
/lzyo59
On July the second a total of 140 swine flu cases have now been diagnosed in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
It is believed that the man was a teacher at the Institute of Islamic Education, a private boarding school in Savile Town, Dewsbury, although NHS Kirklees officials would not comment on this.
Kirklees swine flu school stays closed
Jul 2 2009 By Huddersfield Examiner
A DEWSBURY school remained closed today after three pupils were diagnosed with swine flu.
The boys – all pupils at the Institute of Islamic Education College – are the first in Kirklees to be treated for the virus.
The teenagers are said to be responding well to antiviral drugs at the private Savile Town boarding school.
They are not thought to have recently travelled abroad.
Today, it emerged more pupils and staff at the college were showing flu-like symptoms leading to a decision to close the school for seven days.
They have also been offered antiviral treatment and are being monitored by health officials.
The all-boy independent school is home to 214 boarding pupils and around 100 day students aged between 12 and 19.
All UK-based pupils have been sent home while those from overseas are continuing to board at the school.
Dr Judith Hooper, director of public health for NHS Kirklees said: "We can confirm that three cases of swine flu have been confirmed in Kirklees.
"The individuals concerned are pupils at the Institute of Islamic Education College, Dewsbury, and are being treated at Dewsbury with antiviral medicine at the Institute.
"They are responding well to treatment.
As the World Health Organization prepares to recommend that most countries simply assume its flu cases are due to the novel H1N1 flu virus, officials are seeing the first signs of resistance to the commonly used antiviral drug Tamiflu -- although none that are particularly disturbing yet.
Meanwhile, the virus is continuing its spread through the Northern Hemisphere this summer -- even though flu viruses normally don't spread well in hot weather -- and its effect is escalating in the southern half of the globe, where it is the traditional winter flu season.
Within the next few days, the WHO will suggest that countries with large outbreaks of H1N1, or swine, flu move away from laboratory confirmation of cases and toward larger, national indicators of disease, such as numbers of influenza-like symptoms and pneumonia cases, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general said this morning in a telephone news conference.
The large number of cases in such countries is overwhelming laboratories and making it "very hard to keep up" with testing, he said. The new guidelines will "ease the burden on laboratories," he said. In most countries with large outbreaks of the virus, 95% or more of all flu cases are now caused by the new virus.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Many local health departments in the United States were slow to alert residents to the public health threat posed by the new H1N1 influenza virus in April, according to a report released on Tuesday.
Researchers at the non-profit Rand Corp research organization said only a third of 153 local health departments surveyed posted information about the new swine flu on their websites within the first 24 hours after federal health officials declared a public health emergency.
State health departments did better -- 46 of 50 posting some information about the outbreak within 24 hours of the federal announcement, according to the study published in the journal Health Affairs.
A swine flu outbreak in Saudi Arabia during the pilgrimage season is “inevitable”, but authorities have adequate measures in place for when millions of pilgrims descend on the kingdom later this year, a WHO official said on Tuesday.
"We (WHO) are expecting an outbreak of the illness during pilgrimage season,” Dr John Jappour, medical officer in emerging diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO), told Maktoob Business in an interview.
Jappour said the rapid spread of A(H1N1) globally and the sheer number of people congregating in holy cities of Mecca and Medina for Umrah and Haj meant there would almost certainly be an outbreak of the potentially deadly flu virus.
Around 2 million Muslims are expected to make the journey to Saudi Arabia between August and December for Umrah and Haj.
Taiwanese tourists traveling in South Korea between July and August of this year who will allow themselves to be infected with the H1N1 influenza will each receive NT $100,000 (New Taiwan dollar, official currency of the Republic of China). The promotion begins on July 1 and will involve all Taiwanese tourists that book round-trip direct flights to South Korea via Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, China Airlines, Eva Airways or TransAsia Airways.
Health experts have admitted they now have no idea how many people in Hertfordshire have contracted swine flu.
The admission comes after officials today confirmed the county has abandoned a policy of “containment”, as the swine flu epidemic continues to spread.
Suspected cases are no longer being tested in laboratories and instead, GPs are now prescribing anti-virals to anyone displaying flu symptoms.
Doctors in Watford, Three Rivers and Hertsmere have been following a similar policy since the boroughs were all declare swine flu “hotspots” more a week ago
An H1N1 vaccine is also expected to be ready in October or November, requiring plans for a massive vaccination program.