7th Swine Flu Death In NYC

Latest Victims Were Adults In Mid 40s; WHO Closer To Declaring Global Pandemic

(CBS/AP)  Health authorities say two more New Yorkers have been killed by swine flu.

The Health Department says both people who died were adults in their early and mid 40s. City officials didn't release further details on where they lived or when they contracted the disease, citing patient privacy policies.

At least seven people have been killed by the virus in the city.

Six of the seven deaths have occurred in people with other health problems, presumably including at least one of the new deaths. One case is still being investigated.

On Monday, the fifth person in New York City to die with swine flu was identified by The Daily News as 11-week-old Steven Montanez, of the Bronx. The family said the baby had the flu when his aunt found him unconscious Thursday. He died shortly afterward.

Meanwhile, The World Health Organization said Tuesday it is "getting closer" to declaring a global outbreak of the virus as the infection appears to be taking hold outside of North America.

WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said the disease has reached 64 countries and infected 18,965 people, causing 117 deaths.

The overwhelming majority of cases and deaths have been reported in Mexico and the United States, but increasingly the virus is spreading from person to person in countries as far apart as Britain, Spain, Japan, Chile and Australia.

"We still are waiting for evidence of really widespread community activity in these countries, and so it's fair to say that they are in transition and are not quite there yet, which is why we are not in phase 6 yet," Fukuda said.

Phase 6 is the highest alert on WHO's scale, signaling a pandemic - a global epidemic. In terms of the geographic spread of swine flu, the world is "at phase 5 but getting closer to phase 6," Fukuda said.

WHO is now debating whether to add a second measure that indicates how dangerous the virus is - rather than just how widespread - after several countries raised concerns that declaring a global pandemic could cause mass confusion and panic even though it is still unclear how dangerous the virus will be.

Some nations have already imposed costly trade and travel barriers, "drastic actions" that Fukuda said WHO would seek to prevent.

The agency is calling the situation "moderate" rather than "mild" while it waits to see how the outbreak develops.

Some experts have reported patients with symptoms different from those expected in this type of flu and the virus is causing severe infections in healthy, young adults.

"So we do have some hesitation in calling such an infection mild," Fukuda said. "It's probably fair to call the situation something like moderate right now."

[janieanddeb]

tHAT WHY ALL THE FEAR MONGERING . iTis expected to get worse in the fall .
We wont really know til next fall.
Thye arent closing the schools . I would like to see them report where the cases were .
did they live in a apartment or go to the same school
are there clutters . We arent getting the imformation we need to protect ourselves.
If we get cases in one apartment building will we quarantine them .

[iamchickaddd]

I think what is feared is that it may come back more virulent in the fall like the what happened with the Spanish Flu of 1918.