The swine-flu outbreak that has alarmed the world for a week now appears less ominous, with the virus showing little staying power in the hardest-hit cities and scientists suggesting it lacks the genetic fortitude of past killer bugs.
President Barack Obama even voiced hope Friday that it might turn out to be no more harmful than the average seasonal flu.
In New York City, which has the most confirmed swine-flu cases in the U.S. with 49, swine flu has not spread far beyond cases linked to one Catholic school. In Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, very few relatives of flu victims seem to have caught it.
A flu expert said he sees no reason to think the virus is particularly lethal. And a federal scientist said the germ’s genetic makeup lacks some traits seen in the deadly 1918 flu pandemic strain and the more recent killer bird flu.
“It may turn out that H1N1 runs its course like ordinary flus, in which case we will have prepared and we won’t need all these preparations,” Obama said, using the flu’s scientific name.
The president stressed that the government was still taking the virus very seriously. He added that even if this round turns out to be mild, the bug could return in a deadlier form during the next flu season.
N.Y.: School reopens Monday
New York officials said after a week of monitoring the disease that the city’s outbreak gives little sign of spreading beyond a few pockets or getting more dangerous.
All but two of the city’s confirmed cases involve people associated with the high school where the local outbreak began and where several students had recently returned from Mexico.
Almost everyone who became ill is either recovering or already well. The school, which was closed this past week, is scheduled to reopen Monday.
No new confirmed cases were identified in the city Friday, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the outbreak in New York had so far proved to be “a relatively minor annoyance.”
In Mexico, where swine flu has killed at least 16 people and the confirmed case count has surpassed 300, the health secretary said few of the relatives of 86 suspected swine-flu patients had caught the virus. Only four of the 219 relatives surveyed turned up as probable cases.
As recently as Wednesday, Mexican authorities said there were 168 suspected swine-flu deaths in the country and almost 2,500 suspected cases. The officials have stopped updating that number and say those totals may have even been inflated.
Mexico shut down all but essential government services and private businesses Friday, the start of a five-day shutdown that includes a holiday weekend. Authorities there will use the break to determine whether emergency measures can be eased.
In the Mexican capital, there were no reports of deaths overnight — the first time that has happened since the emergency was declared a week ago, said Mayor Marcelo Ebrard.
There were still plenty of signs Friday of worldwide concern.
China decided to suspend flights from Mexico to Shanghai because of a case of swine flu confirmed in a flight from Mexico, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
And in Hong Kong, hundreds of hotel guests and workers were quarantined after a tourist from Mexico tested positive for swine flu, Asia’s first confirmed case.
U.S.: Virus unlike avian flu
Scientists looking closely at the H1N1 virus itself have found some encouraging news, said Nancy Cox, flu chief at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its genetic makeup doesn’t show specific traits that showed up in the 1918 pandemic virus, which killed about 40 million to 50 million people worldwide.
“However, we know that there is a great deal that we do not understand about the virulence of the 1918 virus or other influenza viruses” that caused serious illnesses, Cox said. “So we are continuing to learn.”
She told The Associated Press that the swine-flu virus also lacked genetic traits associated with the virulence of the bird-flu virus, which grabbed headlines a few years ago and has killed 250 people, mostly in Asia.
Researchers will get a better idea of how dangerous this virus is over the next week to 10 days, said Peter Palese, a leading New York flu researcher.
So far in the United States, he said, the virus appears to look and behave like the garden-variety flus that strike every winter.
“There is no real reason to believe this is a more serious strain,” he said.
Latest developments
• Deaths: 16 confirmed in Mexico and one confirmed in U.S., a toddler from Mexico who died in Texas.
• Confirmed sickened worldwide, 633: 397 in Mexico; 141 in U.S.; 51 in Canada; 13 in both Spain and Britain; four each in Germany and New Zealand; two each in Israel and France; one each in Switzerland, Austria, South Korea, China, Denmark and the Netherlands. Mexico is no longer releasing “suspected” numbers; the number of suspected cases was 2,498 before the tally was halted.
• A Mexican tourist visiting Hong Kong becomes Asia’s first confirmed case. About 300 people were quarantined at a hotel where the tourist stayed.
• A news report says South Korea has its first confirmed case of swine flu. Yonhap news agency reported today that final tests confirmed a 51-year-old woman has the disease after recently returning from a trip to Mexico.
• U.S. confirmed sickened, by state: 50 in New York; 28 in Texas; 13 in California; 16 in South Carolina; five in New Jersey; four each in Arizona and Delaware; three each in Indiana and Illinois; two each in Kansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Virginia and Michigan; and one each in Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska and Nevada.
• The U.S. government issued new guidance for schools with confirmed cases, saying they should close for at least 14 days because children can be contagious for seven to 10 days from when they get sick. The Education Department said that 433 schools had closed, affecting 245,000 children in 17 states.
• Mexico’s chief epidemiologist accuses the World Health Organization of being slow to respond to the country’s warning. Dr. Miguel Angel Lezana said his center told a branch of WHO about a spike in illnesses April 16 but no action was taken until eight days later.
• Public health emergency is declared in U.S.; millions of doses of Tamiflu from federal stockpile are being delivered to states; U.S. is buying more drugs to replenish the stockpile.
