World swine flu toll nears 10,000 - World News, Report

Nearly 10,000 cases of swine flu have been confirmed in 40 different countries around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

The WHO said 79 people are known to have died from the new virus.

The news comes as the WHO and UN hold talks with top pharmaceutical firms to discuss the production of a vaccine.

Correspondents say there is concern about the global distribution of a possible vaccine after wealthy states pre-ordered large stocks.

The WHO says the global tally of swine flu cases stands at 9,830, after rising by 1,001 in one day.

Most of the new flu victims were in Mexico, which reported some 545 cases, and the US, where 409 new cases were confirmed. There were also 34 new cases in Japan.

Five confirmed cases were reported in Panama, three in Chile, two in El Salvador and one each in the UK, Peru and China.

Five new deaths have also been reported - four in Mexico and one in the US.

Scramble for Vaccines

UN chief Ban Ki-moon and WHO head Margaret Chan are holding talks in Geneva with pharmaceutical companies to ask for commitments over the production of a vaccine.

Mr Ban will be looking for a commitment to increase capacity and to produce vaccines at a fair price, the BBC's Imogen Foulkes reports.

Pharmaceutical companies are committed to producing a seasonal flu vaccine and somehow capacity has to be found to produce an affordable swine flu vaccine as well, she says.

Rich countries such as Britain and the US have pre-ordered vast stocks of such a vaccine before a single dose has been produced, leading to concerns about future global supplies.

Michele Childs of the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said that wealthy countries were "putting in place these agreements with vaccine manufacturers to basically jump the queue".

"What needs to be done is all of the countries need to agree how it will be equably shared, based on need, so if one country has got a huge outbreak then they need to be getting the vaccines first," she said.

"But that debate is not happening."

Schools Closed

In Japan the number of swine flu cases has continued to rise rapidly.

The new cases brought the total number of people to have caught the virus in Japan to at least 176, according to authorities there.

Just four cases had been confirmed in Japan as of Friday - people who had returned from Canada.

The first case in someone who had not been abroad - a 17-year-old student in Kobe - was reported on Saturday.

Japanese media say the new wave of infections makes Japan the fourth-most infected country in the world, after Mexico, the US and Canada.

Officials doubled the closures of schools and universities in Hyogo and Osaka on Tuesday, bringing the total to more than 4,000.

None of the patients in the new wave of Japanese infections were reported to be in serious condition.

How Swine Flue Outbreak Emerged? (Mexico, Auckland, New Zealand)

Flu viruses mutate over time causing small changes to proteins on their surface called antigens. If the immune system has met a particular strain of the virus before, it is likely to have some immunity; but if the antigens are new to the immune system, it will be weakened.

The influenza A virus can mutate in two different ways; antigenic drift, in which existing antigens are subtly altered, and antigenic shift, in which two or more strains combine. Antigenic drift causes slight flu mutations year on year, from which humans have partial, but not complete, immunity. By contrast, the new strain of H1N1 appears to have originated via antigenic shift in Mexican pigs

The name "swine flu" is a slight misnomer as it is believed pigs acted as a mixing pot for several flu strains, containing genetic material from pigs, birds and humans. Most humans have never been exposed to some of the antigens involved in the new strain of flu, giving it the potential to cause a pandemic.

The new virus has made the jump from pigs to humans and has demonstrated it can also pass from human to human. This is why it is demanding so much attention from health authorities. The virus passes from human to human like other types of flu, either through coughing, sneezing, or by touching infected surfaces, although little is known about how the virus acts on humans.

Swine Flue the Baics (Auckland, New Zealand, Mexico) Facts

Symptoms usually similar to seasonal flu - but deaths recorded in Mexico

It is a new version of the H1N1 strain which caused the 1918 flu pandemic

Too early to say whether it will lead to a pandemic

Current treatments do work, but there is no vaccine

Good personal hygiene, such as washing hands, covering nose when sneezing advised

FLU PANDEMICS

1918: The Spanish flu pandemic remains the most devastating outbreak of modern times. Caused by a form of the H1N1 strain of flu, it is estimated that up to 40% of the world's population were infected, and more than 50 million people died, with young adults particularly badly affected

1957: Asian flu killed two million people. Caused by a human form of the virus, H2N2, combining with a mutated strain found in wild ducks. The impact of the pandemic was minimised by rapid action by health authorities, who identified the virus, and made vaccine available speedily. The elderly were particularly vulnerable