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WORLD> America
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US, Costa Rica A(H1N1) flu deaths reported
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-10 15:29 Mexico, which raised its count of confirmed cases to 1,626 based on tests of earlier patients, continued to gradually lift a nationwide shutdown of schools, businesses, churches and soccer stadiums.
"It has been very stable ... except for those states," Health Department spokesman Carlos Olmos said, referring to states in central and southern Mexico. Mexican health authorities released a breakdown of the first 45 of the country's 48 flu deaths that showed that 84 percent of the victims were between the ages of 20 and 54. Only 2.2 percent were immune-depressed, and none had a previous history of respiratory disease.
In Japan, authorities quarantined a high school teacher and three teenage students who tested positive in an airport test for the flu after they returned from a school trip to Canada. Officials said they were working with the World Health Organization to contact at least 13 people on the flight who had gone on to other destinations. Japanese Health and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe acknowledged it would be difficult to trace everyone who came into contact with the infected Japanese, who visited Ontario on a home-stay program in a group of about 30 students. The three were isolated and recovering at a hospital near Narita International Airport. "There are limitations to what we can do, but we will continue to monitor the situation and strengthen or relax such measures as needed," he told reporters. Public broadcaster NHK TV urged people who were aboard the same Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to call a special telephone number for consultations. So far, 49 people had been traced and would be monitored for 10 days, officials said. Australia reported its first case Saturday in a woman it said was no longer infectious. She first noticed her symptoms while traveling in the US, federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon told reporters. New Zealand, the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to confirm cases, reported two more Saturday for a total of seven. The two high school students returned last month from a school trip to Mexico. Six of the country's cases were in students and a teacher on that trip; the seventh traveled on the same plane as the group. Norway's National Health Directorate reported that country's first two confirmed cases: a man and a woman, both aged 20, who had been studying in Mexico. In Canada, officials said almost 500 hogs quarantined on an Alberta farm after being diagnosed with A(H1N1) flu had been killed because animals were becoming overcrowded since the facility was barred from shipping any to market. "They were not culled for being sick. They were culled because of animal welfare concerns," Dr. Gerald Hauer, the province's chief veterinarian, told reporters. He said about 1,700 pigs remained on the farm. Authorities have said the pigs apparently became infected from a farm worker who had been in Mexico. Experts say people cannot catch flu from eating pork, but in rare cases people have been infected by contact with a live pig.
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