Geneva - The three cases of patients with swine flu who have
shown resistance to anti-viral drugs were not unexpected, a senior
World Health Organization official said Tuesday.
Kieji Fukuda, the WHO's chief of health security, said they were
'sporadic cases' and that the phenomenon was not widespread. It was
'not unexpected' to see some incidents like this with drug treatment,
he noted.
All three patients, in Denmark, Hong Kong and Japan, were believed
to have made full recoveries.
There were about 98,000 cases of the virus confirmed, with 440
deaths, in 137 countries and territories.
The WHO would issue within the next few days new guidelines for
member states on how to monitor the virus, given that it was
widespread and counting each case was no longer needed.
Rather, the organization would likely recommend that only
countries with few or no cases keep tabs on every instance, but
otherwise to focus on possible mutations, other changes and severity.
Fukuda said that he was not recommending any alterations to the
types of treatments given to people with the new A(H1N1) 09 virus, as
it is scientifically known, which has been mostly responsive to anti-
viral treatment.
In the southern hemisphere, which is going through its seasonal
flu period, some countries were more affected than others. In Chile,
the majority of flu cases were of the new virus while in South Africa
most cases were seasonal and other countries fell at points in
between.
The WHO was convening Tuesday a group of experts on immunizations
and their recommendations would be passed on to the director-general
of the UN's health agency before being made public.
An immunization could be ready by the autumn, experts have said.
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