BERLIN – Germany and Austria confirmed cases of swine flu Wednesday, becoming the third and fourth European countries hit by the disease. As the United States reported the first swine flu death outside of Mexico, the World Health Organization called an emergency meeting to consider its pandemic alert level.
As fear and uncertainty about the disease ricocheted around the globe, nations took all sorts of precautions, some more useful than others.
Britain closed a school after a 12-year-old girl was found to have the disease. Egypt slaughtered all its pigs and the central African nation of Gabon became the latest nation to ban pork imports, despite assurances that swine flu was not related to eating pork.
Cuba eased its flight ban, deciding just to block flights coming in from Mexico. And Asian nations greeted returning airport travelers with teams of medical workers and carts of disinfectants, eager to keep swine flu from infecting their continent.
In Mexico City, the epicenter of the epidemic, the mayor said Wednesday the outbreak seemed to be stabilizing and he was considering easing the citywide shutdown that closed schools, restaurants, concert halls and sports arenas.
Swine flu is suspected of killing more than 150 people in Mexico and sickening over 2,400 there. WHO has confirmed at least 105 cases in seven countries. Over half of those — 66 — are in the U.S., and health officials there reported Wednesday that a 23-month-old Mexican boy had died in Texas from the disease.
Across Europe, Germany confirmed three swine flu cases and Austria one, while the number of confirmed cases rose to five in Britain and four in Spain.
In Geneva, WHO was convening its emergency committee to discuss, among other things, the current pandemic alert level. It now stands at phase 4, two levels below the threshold for a full pandemic outbreak.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the agency's director-general Margaret Chan "has seen a jump in cases and she wants to have that evaluated by the outside experts."
He says that does not automatically mean there will be a change in the pandemic alert level. The results of that meeting will be not be announced until early Thursday, WHO said.
This was coming after a WHO scientific review Wednesday to determine exactly what is known about how the disease spreads, how it affects human health and how it can be treated. Experts will take part via telephone from the U.S., Mexico and other affected countries.
Dr. Nikki Shindo, a WHO flu expert, said the review would focus on the large trove of data coming from Mexico and from a school in New York City that has been hard-hit by the outbreak.
Germany's national disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, said the country's three cases include a 22-year-old woman hospitalized in Hamburg, a man in his late 30s at a hospital in Regensburg, north of Munich, and a 37-year-old woman from another Bavarian town. All three had recently returned from Mexico.
Austria's health ministry said a 28-year-old woman who recently returned from a month long trip to Guatemala via Mexico City and Miami has the virus but is recovering.
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