A surprising announcement regarding the swine flu. On Friday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a decrease in H1N1 flu activity nationwide.
The CDC announced that 43 states now have widespread flu activity, compared with 46 states last week and 48 states at the beginning of November. Despite this decrease, health officials remind us that the occurrence of the flu is still much greater than this time last year, and flu season doesn’t usually begin until December.
In addition to this announcement, the CDC stated that parts of the country are seeing a small decline in flu cases. Other areas, including Hawaii and Maine, have actually seen an increase in swine flu.
Despite the overall decrease in flu cases, the CDC also said that there have been 21 more deaths from H1N1 in children just in the last seven days. This number is in addition to last week’s report that the CDC estimated 540 children had died from complications of this flu virus so far.
In an effort to limit further spread of the virus as millions of Americans begin traveling for the holidays, the CDC has launched a public awareness campaign. The campaign encourages the use of basic precautions, reminding us to only travel when we feel well, to wash our hands often, cover our coughs and sneezes and of course to vaccinated.
According to the CDC, more people will be able to get vaccinated because more vaccine continues to be available. The United States have been able to order a total of 54 million doses of H1N1 vaccine so far, which includes 11 million doses more than last week.
SOURCE: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/11/20/h1n1.cdc.report/index.html