Geneva – The swine flu virus has continued to spread to new countries, World Health Organization data showed Monday, with 47 countries and territories now reporting cases.
The latest additions are Kuwait, with 18 new cases, and Honduras and Iceland, which each reported one case.
The global WHO tally stands at 12,515, including 91 deaths, the overwhelming majority of which were in Mexico.
The United States had 6,552 cases, including nine deaths, Mexico reported 4,174 with 80 deaths and Canada had 805 infections, with one death.
Outside of North America, Japan had 345 cases, followed by Spain with 133, while Britain recorded 122.
Last week, the WHO said that, given the rising figures, the exact number of cases was taking on less importance and that the organization and its member states were focusing more on the spread and severity.
So far, the new influenza A(H1N1) virus, as it is technically known, has shown itself to be relatively mild.
The mildness of the disease prompted the WHO, after prodding by the members, to allow for flexibility in its pandemic influenza alert system.
While the system, currently at the second-highest Phase 5 alert level, was designed to only look at regional spreads, the WHO said last week it would take other factors, like severity, into account before raising another alarm and causing panic.
Officially, the WHO reports 46 countries as having cases, as well as one in Chinese-Taipei, the name it used for Taiwan, which it lists separately. Taiwan is claimed by China as a part of the People’s Republic.
For the first time since Taiwan lost its United Nations seat to the mainland in the 1970s, the island’s government was invited to last week’s World Health Assembly as an observer. (dpa)