Houston,July 25: The death toll due to swine flu around the world has swelled to around 800, World Health Organisation has reported.
The A(H1N1) virus that first caused illness in Mexico and the US in March and April is continuing to spread through the world, the UN body said yesterday.
WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl warned that the virus is expected to increase this winter in the Northern Hemisphere due to cold weather.
Dr Anne Schuchat, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases, agreed to this saying “We had a 6 to 8 per cent attack rate just during the spring months… We think that in a longer winter season, attack rates would be two to three times as high as that.”
Around 160 countries and territories have now reported laboratory-confirmed cases of the virus, but how it could potentially change over the coming weeks is still unknown, the WHO spokesperson told reporters in Geneva.
Meanwhile, the US officials say that the swine flu could end up affecting as many as 40 per cent of Americans, if one includes workers who stay home to care for people who contract the illness.
“Our assumptions for a severe pandemic were that up to 40 per cent of the workforce might be affected and not able to work either because they were ill or they needed to stay home to care for an ill family member,” they said.
–Agencies