The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today warned consumers about a potentially harmful product represented as “Generic Tamiflu” sold over the Internet. FDA tests revealed that the fraudulent product does not contain Tamiflu’s active ingredient, oseltamivir, but cloxacillin, an ingredient in the same class of antibiotics as penicillin.

If you’re concerned about the legitimacy of anti-flu drugs you wish to purchase, you can check the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Verified Internet Pharmacy Sites Seal, also known as VIPPS Seal. The VIPPS Seal gives a seal of approval to pharmacy sites that apply and meet state requirements. Legitimate pharmacies that carry the VIPPS seal are listed at www.vipps.info

“We are now seeing a rising tide of flu in many parts of New York City,” said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden earlier Sunday.

“With the virus spreading widely, closing these and other individual schools will make little difference in transmission throughout New York City, but we hope will help slow transmission within the individual school communities.”

An New York middle school assistant principal who was hospitalized with the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, died Sunday apparently from flu complications, a hospital spokesman said.

New York City closed three public schools for at least five school days because of “unusually high levels” of flu-like illness, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

“I know that many will find this information troubling, but information I’ve always thought is the best antidote to anxiety and we will continue to provide New Yorkers with clear, accurate and timely information as we have it,” Bloomberg said last night at a City Hall news conference, where he was joined by Governor David Paterson and city schools Chancellor Joel Klein. “By taking common sense precautions and not by overreacting we will get through this together.”

The male assistant principal at Intermediate School 238 in Jamaica, in the city borough of Queens, where more than 50 students have been sent home ill, may have had a pre-existing condition that worsened his illness, Bloomberg said.

Peru confirmed its first case of H1N1 Swine Flu, a 27-year-old woman who traveled to her Lima home from New York, Health Minister Oscar Ugarte said yesterday. Measures such as total shutdown and Social Distancing may not be as viable for containing H1N1 Swine Flu infection in New York as they were in Mexico – and this has the New York school system acting quickly to close down schools immediately.

School Closures

In addition to IS 238, or the Susan B. Anthony School, the schools shut in New York yesterday are Public School 16Q in Corona, Queens, where 29 students were documented with flu-like symptoms, and IS 5Q, the Walter Crowley Intermediate School in Elmhurst, Queens, where 241 students were reported absent.

“We have been carefully monitoring the H1N1 virus, and we’re taking this action today because there are unusually high levels of flu-like illnesses at three public schools,” Bloomberg said yesterday.

A total of 4,500 students attend the three schools. The earliest date the schools may reopen is May 22 under the order put in place after health officials discovered the influenza symptoms. Bloomberg said swine flu has been documented in the assistant principal and four students.

Because the new swine flu virus — technically called H1N1 — is a highly unusual genetic mix of bird, flu and human viruses, health officials worry that it could continue to mutate and return in a more virulent form for next winter’s flu season.

As the swine flu continues to spread across the United States — and most cases continue to be mild — federal health officials said Monday that they’re shifting their focus from individual cases of infection to trying to project what is likely to occur with the virus in the fall.

Costa Rica reported the death of a 53-year-old patient with swine flu on Saturday, the first death from the epidemic outside of a North American nation, while Japanese authorities scrambled to limit contacts with their first confirmed cases of the disease.

Worldwide: 3440 cases
United States: 2254 total cases of Swine Flu H1N1 flu, 2 deaths, 44 states have H1N1 Swine Flu Infections. The number of cases in the United States went from 1,639 to 2,254, with 104 people hospitalized, between Friday and Saturday afternoon.

1639 confirmed cases of Swine Flu H1N1 virus.
2 Deaths
43 states have infections.
This is the hard news delivered by the normally conservative CDC today, Friday, May08 2009. The United States now has more H1N1 Swine Flu than any other country. The number of H1N1 Swine Flu virus infections in the United States doubled. Only mexico has more deaths from swine flu H1N1 Virus than the United States.

Are you ready for 1 billion cases of Swine Flu H1N1? Is your family ready? Are you ready to face a world where every thing you touch and every where you go could mean danger for you and your family? Visit the H1N1News.com pandemic supply store – we try to bring you the lowest prices but from reliable, dependable suppliers to get you N95 masks, gloves, disinfectant, and other heath care supplies that are going to keep you and your family safe during a pandemic. You can get information from the CDC on masks here explaining the proper selection and use of N95 NIOSH approved face masks and respirators.

The CDC is now estimating that the number of cases worldwide of H1N1 Swine flu could reach 1 billion cases by the summer. Normally, the summer is the time when influenza virii have the most problems reproducing and spreading, but apparently the H1N1 Swine Flu shares more traits than was previously thought with the 1918 Swine Flu H1N1 Pandemic. That Swine Flu strian was also more resistant to heat, and therefore was able to spread unabated during the summer months.

The World Health Organization said Thursday that up to 2 billion people could be infected by swine flu if the current outbreak turns into a pandemic. The agency said a pandemic typically lasts two years.

WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said the number wasn’t a prediction, but that experience with flu pandemics showed one-third of the world’s population gets infected.

“If we do move into a pandemic then our expectation is that we will see a large number of people infected worldwide,” Fukuda said. “If you look at past pandemics, it would be a reasonable estimate to say perhaps a third of the world’s population would get infected with this virus.”

The H1N1 Swine Flu is though to be on the decline right now in North America, where it is currently most prevalent – but based on past Swine Flu or H1N1 Flu infections, there will be multiple waves of the Flu, with varying levels of danger. Curreently the H1N1 Swine flu is invading South America, where it is prime flu season, sparking fears that the Swine Flu H1N1 Virus may mutate further and come back to North America later this year in a more virulent, contagious and dangerous form.

In a statement, the Texas Department of State Health services said it was “reporting the first death of a Texas resident with H1N1 [swine] flu.

“A woman from Cameron County who had chronic underlying health conditions died earlier this week,” it said.

It is the second swine flu fatality outside Mexico, after a Mexican toddler died of the virus in the US in April.

Swine Flu H1N1 experts and health authorities predict that every state in the US will has some cases and that its possible for fatalities to grow quickly as secondary waves of the H1N1 Swine Flu return from the southern hemisphere, which is just entering its main flu season.

21 countries
1490 cases h1n1 swine flu

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths – Austria (1), Canada (140), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (4), Germany (9), Ireland (1), Israel (4), Italy (5), Netherlands (1), New Zealand (6), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (2), Spain (57), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (27).

H1N1 Swine Flu Virus Cases Jump Quickly

The number of confirmed swine flu cases worldwide has increased to 1,490 with 30 deaths, most of them in Mexico, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. It marks an increase of 405 cases and four deaths since Monday.

These large, fast increases in H1N1 Virus cases and Swine Flu death counts are to be expected as the secondary and third waves of the H1N1 Swine Flu Virus begin their sweep across the world.

Besser said the CDC was even reconsidering the strategy of closing schools where cases turn up. More than 500 U.S. schools have been closed because of outbreaks.

Schools are closed to protect children, and to keep children from being “amplifiers” who spread an infection in the community. But this virus is looking to be as mild as seasonal flu, which only rarely kills children.

“We are seeing over 700 probable cases in a total of 44 states,” Besser said. So far, 99 percent of probable cases have, upon further testing, turned out to be the new H1N1 strain, Besser said.

“This likely represents an underestimation of the total number of cases across the United States,” Besser added, because most people with flu-like symptoms — fever, aching muscles and cough — are not even getting tested.