Britain facing swine flu upsurge, US calls crisis talks

Jul 3 08:26 AM US/Eastern

A scientist prepares a DNA test for the A(H1N1) virus. Britain has warned i... Taiwan researchers sort through eggs used for the cultivation of swine flu ... DNA test kits for the the A(H1N1) or swine flu virus at a British laborator...

Britain warned it could face more than 100,000 daily cases of swine flu and the United States called a meeting of top officials as governments grappled on Friday with a resurgent swine flu pandemic. The warning from British Health Secretary Andy Burnham came as the Japanese health ministry said doctors had detected the second case worldwide of a patient resistant to the anti-viral Tamiflu, widely used to treat the illness. Burnham told parliament that 100,000 cases a day could occur in Britain by the end of August if the current infection rate is maintained. The country already has Europe's highest number of reported cases. Health officials say they are abandoning trying to stop the flu spreading, instead focusing on people who are most susceptible, such as the obese or those with asthma or breathing problems. "Cases are doubling every week, and on this trend we could see over 100,000 cases a day by the end of August, but I stress this is only a projection," Burnham told the House of Commons on Thursday. Britain now had nearly 7,500 cases of swine flu, he added, with hundreds of new cases being confirmed every day. Three people have died in Britain so far from the virus. The latest numbers from the World Health Organisation, released on Wednesday, showed 77,201 reported swine flu cases, with 332 deaths. In Washington, the White House said it would hold a high-level meeting next week bringing together top government officials to prepare for the possibility of a more severe outbreak of A(H1N1) influenza. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Education Secretary Arne Duncan will take part in the meeting at the National Institutes of Health next Thursday. The meeting was called after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that at least one million people in the United States have had swine flu, basing the projection partly on computer models. There have been roughly 28,000 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States and 127 people are reported to have died, the CDC said. In Japan, the health ministry said doctors in Osaka prefecture had identified a woman who was resistant to Tamiflu -- the second such case in a week, after one found in Denmark. The Japanese woman had since been treated with another medication, Relenza, and was recovering, Kyodo news agency reported Thursday, citing the health ministry. A spokeswoman for Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche, which makes Tamiflu, called the case "absolutely normal" and added that "0.4 percent of adults develop resistance" to Tamiflu. In China, furious relatives of a woman who died while being treated for suspected swine flu stoned an ambulance in a rampage at a hospital in the eastern city of Hangzhou, state news agency Xinhua reported. Initial reports stoked fears she might be the first person in China to die from swine flu, but police said on Friday that an autopsy had shown she died of an electric shock. Xinhua reported that the woman had shown no symptoms of swine flu at the time of death, barring an occasional cough. Elsewhere in Asia, Brunei reported its first swine flu death. In Latin America, a nine-year-old boy became the first person to die in El Salvador from the virus, the health ministry said Thursday. The Americas have been the hardest hit by the disease, with the United States, Mexico, Canada and Argentina suffering the vast majority of the world's fatalities. El Salvador, close to the initial source of the current pandemic in Mexico, has seen 277 confirmed cases of A(H1N1) and a further 178 patients are being watched. On Thursday the WHO vowed that poor countries in the Americas would receive enough anti-virals to combat the swine flu outbreak. At a summit in Cancun, Mexico, WHO director-general Margaret Chan said Roche had promised to supply 5.6 million Tamiflu treatments for distribution to developing countries. The head of the Pan American Health Organization, Mirta Roses, said a US donation of 425,000 Tamiflu courses would cover immediate needs. "The region is pretty well covered with anti-virals, with equipment for diagnosis," Roses said.