WHO's Tally of A/H1N1 Influenza Cases Rises to 2,500

    Twenty-five countries have officially reported 2,500 laboratory-confirmed human A/H1N1 influenza cases as of 16:00 GMT on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a latest update.

    Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, has reported 1,204 laboratory-confirmed cases of human infection, including 44 deaths. The United States has reported 896 laboratory-confirmed human cases, including two deaths.

    Other governments that have reported laboratory-confirmed cases with no deaths include Austria (1), Brazil (4), Canada (214), Hong Kong, China (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (12), Germany (11), Guatemala (1), Ireland (1), Israel (7), Italy (6), the Netherlands (3), New Zealand (5), Poland (1), Portugal (1), the Republic of Korea (3), Spain (88), Sweden (1), Switzerland (1) and Britain (34).

    The WHO reiterated on Friday that it currently had no plan to raise its pandemic alert level from phase 5 to phase 6, as no community-level infections had occurred outside North America.

    "We still remain in stage five. We have no evidence of community transmission," Sylvie Briand, acting director of the WHO's global influenza program, told a news conference in Geneva.

    She said most human cases outside North America were related to travel to Mexico, which indicated that the new virus has not taken root in those regions.

    The WHO raised its pandemic alert level to phase 5 last week, which means a pandemic is "imminent." A further raise to phase 6, the highest level, will mean a pandemic is under way.

(Source: Xinhua)