WHO : Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 107

H1N1 update from WHO :

" Weekly update

2 July 2010 -- As of 27 June, worldwide more than 214 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including over 18239 deaths.

WHO is actively monitoring the progress of the pandemic through frequent consultations with the WHO Regional Offices and Member States and through monitoring of multiple sources of information.

Situation update:

Summary: Worldwide, overall pandemic and seasonal influenza activity remains low. In the temperate regions of the Southern Hemisphere, Chile, and Argentina report low activity and only sporadic detections of both pandemic and seasonal influenza viruses during the early part of winter. South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia have all recently noted slight increases in the rate of respiratory disease. South Africa recently reported their first case of confirmed H1N1; however, the predominant influenza virus there currently is seasonal influenza A(H3N2). The H3N2 virus detected in South Africa is similar to the Perth-like strain, which is currently a component of the trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine. Active transmission of pandemic influenza virus still persists in localized areas of the tropics, particularly in South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and West Africa. During the last 2 to 3 weeks, seasonal influenza H3N2 viruses have also been detected at increasing levels in Nicaragua, and low levels or sporadically in Australia, Central America, South Africa and East Africa. Global circulation of seasonal influenza virus type B viruses persists at low levels in parts of East Asia, Central Africa, and Central America.

Regional Details: In most countries of the temperate zone of the southern hemisphere (Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand) pandemic and seasonal influenza viruses have been detected only sporadically in June 2010 and activity is low, indicating a late start of the influenza season compared to 2008. Overall levels of respiratory disease in the population remain low. In Argentina, small numbers of influenza type B viruses were detected during mid June 2010. In both Chile and Argentina, respiratory syncitial virus (RSV) continued to be the predominant circulating respiratory virus resulting in high rates of respiratory illness in children. In South Africa, small and slightly increasing numbers of seasonal H3N2 and type B viruses were detected during mid June 2010. In both Australia and New Zealand, levels of ILI are increasing, but still below recent historical seasonal levels.

In Asia, the most active areas of pandemic influenza virus transmission currently are in parts of southern India, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Malaysia. Rates are decreasing in the latter three countries but in India, the number of laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza has increased since mid June. This activity has been primarily observed in Southern state of Kerala, and includes reports of a number of severe and fatal cases, particularly among pregnant women. In Bangladesh, pandemic and seasonal influenza type B viruses co-circulated at low levels during early June 2010. In Singapore, during the third week of June 2010, the levels of ARI remained below warning levels and the proportion of patients with ILI testing positive for pandemic influenza virus fell from 19% to 15%. In Malaysia, data suggests that overall pandemic influenza activity has declined throughout June 2010 though pandemic virus continues to circulate at low levels. Throughout East Asia, influenza activity remained very low. In China and Japan, levels of ILI remained at or below baseline levels for the summer months. Low and declining levels of influenza type B viruses continued to circulate across China, Hong Kong SAR (China), Chinese Taipei and Republic of Korea."