neurgmlb

The first case of swine flu has been reported in Toronto. The city’s first case was reported this afternoon by Dr. David Williams, the acting chief medical officer of health. Ontario now has eight cases of swine flu. The other seven cases are throughout the 905 region. Nationally the number of confirmed swine flu cases climbed to 28 today as Alberta and Nova Scotia announced eight new cases of the virus, although all are said to be mild. The four new cases in Nova Scotia are related to an original cluster of four cases among students at a private boarding school in Windsor. In Alberta, medical health officer Dr. Andre Corriveau says the cases in the province involve young adults from Calgary who recently returned from a trip to Mexico. They have been advised to stay home for a week. In Nova Scotia, the four students who originally came down with the virus have fully recovered and returned to classes at King’s-Edgehill School. The four original cases in Nova Scotia involved students who returned from a trip to Mexico earlier this month. Health officials say people shouldn’t panic over the new cases and are suggesting everyone should continue with their regular activities. The World Health Organization gave the swine flu a new name today as it announced there are now 236 confirmed cases of the new virus around the globe. "Rather than calling this swine flu … we’re going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told reporters in Geneva today. Thompson said the flu name change comes after the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency expressed concerns that the term "swine flu" was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to order the slaughter of pigs even though experts have insisted the swine flu is not spread by eating pork. The United States did not suggest it would change the name of the virus. "What we call this matters much less than what we do," Dr. Richard Besser, acting director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a press conference in Atlanta today. "We continue to be very aggressive in our approach and we’re going to continue to do that until the situation tells us that we no longer need to do so. There is no one action that is going to stop this. There is no silver bullet, but all of the efforts – the efforts of governments, the efforts of communities, the efforts of individuals will help to reduce the impact on people’s health." The WHO raised the global alert for swine flu to phase five – the second highest level – yesterday, stating they believe a pandemic is evident. "Phase five holds steady and there is no evidence to suggest a move to phase six," Dr. Keiji Fukuda, assistant director at the WHO said in a teleconference call from Geneva. "The situation continues to evolve." This is to be expected as infectious disease experts make their way through the thousands of samples collected from ill Mexicans, Fukuda said. At this point, the WHO does not feel travel restrictions will slow down movement of the virus. But if someone is feeling ill they should "strongly consider delaying that travel." As the northern hemisphere comes to the end of the flu season, it is the beginning of the flu season for the countries in the southern hemispheres. Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche donated 5 million treatment courses of their antiviral drug Tamiflu in 2005/2006 to the WHO and a portion of that stockpile is being sent to Mexico and other developing countries. In the U.S. six patients have been hospitalized, including the baby from Texas who died from the flu. "Unfortunately, I do expect that there will be more deaths," Besser said. Besser said it is a "good thing" the WHO raised its pandemic threat level to 5, although it will not change what the U.S. is already doing to deal with the outbreak. "It’s really a wake-up call to the rest of the global community," he said. "It’s time to pull out your pandemic plan." Besser said health authorities are currently growing a seed strain of the virus that could be used in a vaccine but nothing has been distributed to manufacturers yet. He also said pharmaceutical companies would finish producing seasonal flu vaccines before switching over to manufacturing a vaccine for the H1NI virus if there was one available by that time. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has urged his fellow citizens to stay at home during the upcoming public holidays from Friday to May 5. "I would urge you all, without exception, that during the public holidays we are about to have. . . to remain at home with your family; because there is no safer place for avoiding swine flu virus contagion than your own homes," Calderon said in a speech yesterday. A meeting between the Canadian Parliament and the Senate of Mexico that was supposed to have taken place in Ottawa and St. John, N.B. next week has been cancelled because of the swine influenza. "The Congress of Mexico and the Parliament of Canada note the excellent bilateral cooperation that exists between the health authorities of both of our countries in view of the human swine influenza control challenge, which poses a risk to our citizens," they said in a joint statement Thursday. "We are witness to the committed effort by both countries to address this health threat. We recognize the importance of implementing coordinated actions in the struggle against pandemics and epidemics, and plan to add this as a theme for our next interparliamentary agenda." -With files from Torstar News Service