Influenza A(H1N1) - update 55

Laboratory-confirmed cases of new influenza A(H1N1) as officially reported to WHO by States Parties to the International Health Regulations (2005)

29 June 2009 09:00 GMT

The breakdown of the number of laboratory-confirmed cases is given in the following table and map.

Map of the spread of Influenza A(H1N1): number of laboratory confirmed cases and deaths [png 171kb] (http://twurl.nl/dkmw3e)

Country, territory and area	Cumulative total		Newly confirmed since the last reporting period
	Cases	Deaths	Cases	Deaths
Algeria	2	0	0	0
Antigua and Barbuda	2	0	0	0
Argentina	1488	23	97	2
Australia	4038	7	758	4
Austria	12	0	0	0
Bahamas	4	0	0	0
Bahrain	15	0	0	0
Bangladesh	1	0	0	0
Barbados	10	0	0	0
Belgium	43	0	7	0
Bermuda, UKOT	1	0	0	0
Bolivia	126	0	79	0
Brazil	452	0	53	0
British Virgin Islands, UKOT	1	0	0	0
Brunei Darussalam	29	0	18	0
Bulgaria	7	0	0	0
Cambodia	6	0	1	0
Canada	7775	21	1043	2
Cap Verde	3	0	0	0
Cayman Islands, UKOT	9	0	0	0
Chile	5186	7	0	0
China	1442	0	353	0
Colombia	88	2	16	0
Costa Rica	255	1	33	0
Cote d'Ivoire	2	0	0	0
Cuba	34	0	0	0
Cyprus	25	0	16	0
Czech Republic	9	0	0	0
Denmark	44	0	3	0
Dominica	1	0	0	0
Dominican Republic	108	2	0	0
Ecuador	125	0	0	0
Egypt	50	0	7	0
El Salvador	226	0	66	0
Estonia	13	0	5	0
Ethiopia	2	0	0	0
Fiji	2	0	0	0
Finland	26	0	0	0
France	235	0	44	0
French Polynesia, FOC	3	0	2	0
Martinique, FOC	2	0	0	0
Germany	366	0	33	0
Greece	86	0	13	0
Guatemala	254	2	0	0
Honduras	118	1	0	0
Hungary	8	0	0	0
Iceland	4	0	0	0
India	64	0	0	0
Indonesia	8	0	6	0
Iran	1	0	0	0
Iraq	10	0	10	0
Ireland	39	0	10	0
Israel	469	0	64	0
Italy	112	0	10	0
Jamaica	21	0	2	0
Japan	1212	0	163	0
Jordan	18	0	3	0
Korea, Republic of	202	0	60	0
Kuwait	30	0	0	0
Laos	3	0	0	0
Latvia	1	0	0	0
Lebanon	25	0	0	0
Lithuania	1	0	1	0
Luxembourg	4	0	1	0
Malaysia	112	0	44	0
Mexico	8279	116	0	0
Monaco	1	0	1	0
Montenegro	1	0	0	0
Morocco	11	0	0	0
Nepal	3	0	3	0
Netherlands	118	0	2	0
Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao *	3	0	0	0
Netherlands Antilles, Sint Maarten	1	0	0	0
New Zealand	587	0	134	0
Nicaragua	277	0	12	0
Norway	31	0	9	0
Oman	3	0	0	0
Panama	403	0	45	0
Papua New Guinea	1	0	0	0
Paraguay	85	0	6	0
Peru	360	0	108	0
Philippines	861	1	416	0
Poland	14	0	1	0
Portugal	11	0	4	0
Qatar	10	0	0	0
Romania	24	0	5	0
Russia	3	0	0	0
Samoa	1	0	0	0
Saudi Arabia	69	0	21	0
Serbia	5	0	3	0
Singapore	599	0	284	0
Slovakia	9	0	2	0
Slovenia	4	0	1	0
South Africa	1	0	0	0
Spain	541	0	0	0
Sri Lanka	9	0	2	0
Suriname	11	0	0	0
Sweden	67	0	6	0
Switzerland	49	0	2	0
Thailand	774	0	0	0
Trinidad and Tobago	53	0	28	0
Tunisia	2	0	0	0
Turkey	27	0	1	0
Ukraine	1	0	0	0
United Arab Emirates	8	0	1	0
United Kingdom	4250	1	653	0
Guernsey, Crown Dependency	1	0	0	0
Isle of Man, Crown Dependency	1	0	0	0
Jersey, Crown Dependency	8	0	0	0
United States of America	27717	127	6268	40
Uruguay	195	0	0	0
Vanuatu	2	0	0	0
Venezuela	172	0	19	0
Viet Nam	84	0	21	0
West Bank and Gaza Strip	9	0	0	0
Yemen	6	0	0	0
Grand Total	70893	311	11079	48

Chinese Taipei has reported 61 confirmed cases of influenza A (H1N1) with 0 deaths. Cases from Chinese Taipei are included in the cumulative totals provided in the table above.

Cumulative and new figures are subject to revision

Abbreviations

UKOT: United Kingdom Overseas Territory
FOC: French Overseas Collectivity
OT: Overseas Territory

Netherlands Antilles, Curaçao *: 3 confirmed cases: The three confirmed cases are crew members of a cruise ship. They did not leave the boat during their illness nor during the 24 hours preceding the onset of symptoms.

Brain-controlled wheelchair rolls out

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by just detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command.

Toyota’s system, developed in a collaboration with researchers in Japan, is among the fastest in the world in analysing brain waves, it said in a release on Monday.

Previous systems required several seconds to read brain waves but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds — or 125 thousandths of a second.

The person in the wheelchair wears a cap that can read brain signals, which are relayed to a brain scan electro-encephalograph, or EEG, on the electrically powered wheelchair, and then analysed in a computer program.

Research into mobility is part of Toyota’s larger strategy to go beyond automobiles in helping people get around in new ways.

The new system allows the person on the wheelchair to turn left or right and go forward, almost instantly, according to researchers.

Coming to a stop still requires more than a thought. The person in the wheelchair must puff up a cheek, which is picked up in a detector worn on the face.

Others

Japanese rival Honda Motor Co is also working on a system to connect the monitoring of brain waves with mechanical moves.

Earlier this year, Honda showed a video that had a person wearing a helmet sitting still but thinking about moving his right hand.

The thought was picked up by cords attached to his head inside the helmet. After several seconds, Honda’s boy-shaped robot Asimo, programmed to respond to brain signals, lifted its right arm.

Neither Honda nor Toyota said it had any plans to turn the technology into a product for commercial sale as each said they are still developing the research. — AP

Tell online scammers to BEAT IT!!

SAN JOSE (California): Minutes after any big celebrity dies, Internet swindlers get to work. They pump out specially created spam e-mail messages and throw up malicious websites to infect victims’ computers, hoping to capitalise on the sudden demand for information.

Michael Jackson’s death was no different, and security experts say the fraud artists are just getting started.

The scams started cropping up almost instantaneously as Jackson’s death was still hitting the news. As days have gone by, they’ve gotten more sophisticated — and dangerous.

Jackson’s death “took a lot of people by surprise — the spammers, too,” said Dermot Harnett, principal analyst for anti-spam engineering at Symantec Corp, a security software maker.

“It might take them some time to really pounce on this issue. They are catching up pretty quickly, though.”

Any major world event, such as the recent protests in Iran, triggers a barrage of Internet attacks. Security experts say the malicious traffic associated with Jackson’s death will likely match and perhaps exceed those of other big spamming campaigns, such as those connected with the swine flu outbreak and Saddam Hussein’s execution.

Spam is the most common way for fraudsters to find victims after these types of events. They can use a shotgun approach with a boilerplate message about Jackson, taking advantage of people’s interests in the topic to improve their batting average over their usual spam campaigns.

By enticing users with such messages and tricking them into clicking on e-mail attachments, scammers can easily infect victims’ computers and take command of them for more nefarious activities.

Bad and dangerous

The spam about Jackson’s death gets more convincing every day.

One message promises a YouTube video showing the exclusive “last work of Michael Jackson.” Instead, victims get a malicious program that steals their passwords.

Another promises to show the “latest unpublished photos” of Jackson if you click on a link — one that also tries to install a password-stealing program on your machine.

Others purport to be from legitimate news outlets and may contain accurate enough information to convince viewers they’re real enough to click on. Others promise access to secret songs.

The effects of specific spam campaigns, like the one surrounding Jackson’s death, are hard to quantify, though. Spam levels are already so high that there might not be a noticeable increase in overall spam levels, Harnett said.

By some estimates spam accounts for more than 90% of all e-mail sent around the world, though the bulk of the messages get filtered out before ever reaching the user.

Celebrity deaths are a gold mine for criminals because lots of people go online looking for news. Google Inc says the spike in searches for news stories about Jackson’s death was so sharp the company initially mistook it for an automated attack.

Many of the information-seekers can be tricked, via e-mail, into visiting malicious websites. That opens the door to all kinds of nastiness, like spying on what someone’s typing or using the hijacked machine to send spam.

Starting something

There are also so many more websites about celebrities after their deaths that it’s hard to figure out which ones are legitimate fan sites, and which ones were created by criminals.

Registrations of domain names related to Jackson have spiked since the pop icon died. A leading registration company, GoDaddy.com, said it registered about 7,500 such names since then.

Actress Farrah Fawcett, who died the same day, got about 100 domains in the same period. GoDaddy said, however, that it had yet to get any complaints that any of those addresses were used for scams.

Within minutes of Jackson’s death hitting the news, scammers started sending out spam e-mail with links purportedly to provocative news stories or videos about Jackson.

The news stories, of course, never appear. Instead, people who click on those links are often directed to sites that try to install viruses.

Another thing to remember: It’s not wise even to just “check out” a link you’re interested in if you suspect the site might be bogus. Sometimes just visiting a malicious website is enough to get you infected, and you don’t need to actively download anything at all. Many scams ask people to download a video player or other piece of software — supposedly so they can see the video or hear the audio — that winds up being a piece of malicious software.

The lesson for users is, as always, avoid unsolicited links from senders you don’t know, and don’t install any programs that an unknown site is telling you you need. — AP

Formula 1 stands on the brink

SILVERSTONE, June 19 — Formula One stands on the brink today unsure whether it is going to tear itself apart or move towards a united future.

Which way it will go, with five of the current teams facing a deadline to sign up unconditionally for 2010 or risk being excluded, is the billion dollar question that nobody can answer with any certainty.

The likelihood that the teams would refuse to bow to the demands of the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) appeared very real at the British Grand Prix yesterday with at least two clearly determined to give no ground.

The consequences of that happening would likely be far-reaching.

If the five — Brawn, BMW-Sauber, McLaren, Renault and Toyota — are then replaced by would-be new entrants waiting in the wings, a threatened rival series looks very much on the cards.

Both sides have been waging a war of letters and statements for weeks and, despite attempts to reach a last-ditch deal, appeared as entrenched as ever.

The eight-member teams’ association FOTA want significant change to the governance of the sport and see FIA president Max Mosley, who is up for re-election in October but has yet to announce whether he is standing, as the major obstacle.

The FIA has accused the FOTA teams, led by champions Ferrari, of wanting to run the sport.

While some paddock veterans saw a split as inevitable, others questioned whether FOTA’s unity would hold or whether the FIA would be first to blink.

FOTA MEETING

While FOTA bosses met at Renault’s Enstone headquarters to decide how to respond to FIA president Max Mosley’s latest letter, drivers expressed dismay.

“I have no idea what is going to happen, it’s such a strange feeling,” said Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, whose team are one of those threatening to walk away.

“It will be a big disappointment if they can’t find an agreement. A piece of history is going to break down and it will be everyone’s fault probably.

“I am only sad for the fans and the sport, because we are here to write history, and for the moment we are only writing about what the future of F1 will be and the politics.”

Both sides can muster persuasive arguments and both have plenty to lose.

The FIA say costs have to come down and a budget cap is necessary to allow new teams to come in and to keep existing ones in the face of the credit crunch.

They are prepared to soften the blow by allowing a cap of €100 million (RM490 million) next year before going down to the originally proposed €45 million in 2011.

Some FOTA teams say the social and human consequences of such a measure, with thousands of jobs at risk, are unacceptable and unnecessary.

The FIA has suggested teams agree to extend the now-expired 1998 Concorde Agreement governing the sport until either 2014 or the signing of a new deal.

However that date alone represents a significant stumbling block, requiring a huge leap of faith on the part of the teams that all the parties would then be willing to put pen to a revised deal. And trust is in short supply.

FOTA have the manufacturers, the engines and the top drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, who made clear yesterday that he would not compete in any series without the glamour names.

They also have Ferrari, although the FIA say they are entered unconditionally for 2010 under an existing contract along with Red Bull’s two teams.

Going it alone would give the teams control of the revenues but whether the manufacturers, at board level, have the stomach to do this at a time of financial turmoil is a moot point.

Some FOTA members have more to lose than others. As one source pointed out, Formula One is mere marketing to some manufacturers but the only reason that the likes of championship-leaders Brawn and McLaren exist.

The legal consequences of a split are also to be considered.

“If they do try to set up their own series...there are big problems ahead for them,” commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone warned this month.

“Any action could run to hundreds of millions of pounds, who knows how much?” — Reuters

F1 teams announce breakaway series

SILVERSTONE, England (AP) - Formula One's biggest teams began preparations for a breakaway series early Friday after failing to resolve their dispute with the motor sports' governing body over financial constraints.

The Formula One Teams' Association announced it would not compromise on the quality of the series by signing up unconditionally for the 2010 F1 season under the FIA's radical new plans for cost-cutting.

FIA president Max Mosley is insistent on introducing a voluntary $60 million budget cap for teams to curtail a "financial arms race" in F1.

But with FOTA refusing to agree to the FIA's conditions, championship leader Brawn GP, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso are set to be lost from F1.

"The teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport and have declined to alter their original conditional entries to the 2010 world championship," FOTA said after a meeting near Silverstone ahead of Sunday's British Grand Prix. "These teams, therefore, have no alternative other than to commence the preparation for a new championship which reflects the values of its participants and partners.

"This series will have transparent governance, one set of regulations, encourage more entrants and listen to the wishes of the fans, including offering lower prices for spectators worldwide, partners and other important stakeholders. The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motorsport will all feature in this new series."

Amid the global economic downturn, FOTA said it has already embarked on substantial cost-cutting.

"FOTA is proud that it has achieved the most substantial measures to reduce costs in the history of our sport," the statement said. "In particular, the manufacturer teams have provided assistance to the independent teams, a number of which would probably not be in the sport today without the FOTA initiatives. The FOTA teams have further agreed upon a substantial voluntary cost reduction that provides a sustainable model for the future."

Penang close to securing US$200m investments

GEORGE TOWN: Two hi-tech firms are set to invest up to US$100 million (RM353 million) each at the industrial estates on mainland Penang, said InvestPenang Bhd executive committee chairman Datuk Lee Kah Choon.

He said the firms, one of which is from the US, were currently in negotiations with the Penang Development Corporation (PDC) to buy land at the Bukit Minyak Industrial Estate or the Science Park in Juru.

Lee said the new investments were expected to be sealed soon, after the finalisation of a few issues.

The companies were keen to commence operations as soon as possible, Lee said in his media update of investments and employment in the state on June 17.

However, he declined to reveal further details as the agreements have yet to be finalised.

“These are both totally new investments. Both are involved in hi-tech industries, one of them part of a supply chain for certain industries, and once they commence operations will employ hundreds of engineers each for their operations,” Lee said.

New foreign investments in Penang this year include those by St Jude’s Medical Devices, Chakra Biotech and US-based National Instruments.

St Jude’s Medical Devices is investing RM108 million and employing up to 1,000 workers to produce cardia rhythm management products. The facility would be fully operational in 2011.

Chakra Biotech is investing RM8 million to produce new drugs and screening service by the end of this year, while National Instruments’ RM280 million investment will provide 1,500 jobs when it is fully operational.

Lee also said Penang Career Assistance and Training (CAT) centre, in collaboration with the Penang Skills Development Centre (PSDC), was allocating 100 places in two training programmes to SPM/SPVM school-leavers and job-seekers from families registered under Penang’s Hard Core Poor Programme.

The training programmes are in precision machining technology and water management certification. The trainees will enjoy free tuition and a special monthly allowance of RM800 each during the training period.