As we said in yesterday’s column, viral pandemics don’t operate according to news cycles, and this one has shown very little respect for the international dateline, anyway. It has been confirmed that individuals carrying the virus have made it as far as Israel and New Zealand now, so the World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert level based on these confirmed cases. So far, however, it appears the vast majority of cases outside Mexico are instances where the individual traveled to Mexico and picked it up there. Within Mexico, the death total has now risen to 152, but many of those are suspected cases and there are no indications that anyone outside of that country has died as a result of the virus.
So, that quick rundown out of the way, it’s time for the obvious caveat: all of those numbers may be out of date by the time you read this. So, we’ll focus more on the choice of threat level made by the WHO and provide a bit more background on the flu virus itself.
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Originally Syndicated via RSS from Ars Technica
