June 26

Anne Schuchat, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC told a news briefing.

"Reported cases are really just the tip of the iceberg," she said of the roughly 287,000 confirmed cases of (A)H1N1 flu in the United States.

Around 3,000 people infected with swine flu in the United States have had to be hospitalized and 127 people are reported to have died.

A community survey conducted in New York City, where the CDC believes there have been half a million cases of (A)H1N1, showed 6.9 percent of residents experienced flu-like illness during a three week period in May, Schuchat said.

"From their virologic testing, they knew that most of that influenza-like illness was based on this new H1N1 strain, and from that, they estimated that around half a million New York City residents may have been infected with this new virus... without necessarily seeking care," Schuchat said.

The novel H1N1 influenza is continuing to spread here in the United States and around the globe. What we're seeing is varying by region in the United States and in different countries. The key point is that this new infectious disease is not going away. In the U.S., we're still experiencing a steady increase in the number of reported cases. Of course, reported cases are really just the tip of the iceberg. The number of new cases that were reported to us this past week was actually the largest number we've had reported since the beginning of the outbreak. Today, we're describing the 27,717 lab-defined cases have been reported to us here in the U.S., including over 3,000 hospitalizations and 127 fatalities. There were more than 6,000 of these cases reported to us within this past week. W.H.O. is now reporting almost 60,000 cases of this new virus in more than 100 countries and they report being aware of 263 deaths. Here in the U.S., 12 states are reporting widespread influenza activity, those include Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah and Virginia. And you'll notice some of those states have been having widespread activity for a while and some of the states that had widespread activity a while ago, like Texas or California, aren't actually on that list right now. It's very unusual for this time of year to still be having so many states reporting regional and widespread activity and that's just one feature that helps us know that what we're seeing this year is quite different than what we usually see with seasonal influenza.

WASHINGTON (AFP)

There have been roughly 287,000 confirmed cases of A(H1N1) flu in the United States, around 3,000 people have been taken to hospital and 127 people are reported to have died, the CDC said.

"Reported cases are really just the tip of the iceberg," said Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, of the roughly 28,000 confirmed cases of A(H1N1) flu in the United States.