The number of confirmed H1N1 flu cases worldwide is nearing 10,000, the World Health Organization said Tuesday morning. Commonly known as swine flu, the outbreak has sickened 9,830 people and caused at least 79 deaths -- mostly in Mexico, the organization said. The actual number of people affected may be higher, as it takes time for national governments to confirm cases and report them to the global body. In the United States, at least 5,123 cases of swine flu have ...

Researchers at a South Korean university say they have discovered a candidate strain for an H1N1 vaccine, though it has not yet been approved by health authorities in the United States or the World Health Organization. The strain is a genetically modified version of a live virus, and could lead to a vaccine against H1N1 -- commonly known as swine flu, said Seo Sang-heui, a professor at Chungnam National University's College of Veterinary Medicine in South Korea. "We created a ...

Edison had his lightbulb, Ford had his Model T, and Jan Vinzenz Krause has his spray-on condom. Inspired by the mechanics of a drive-through car wash, the German sexual-health educator designed a custom-fitting male contraceptive using liquid latex and some materials from a hardware store. "I felt a little like MacGyver," he says of building the contraption. U.S. condom sales have been increasing steadily over the years, according to Packaged Facts, a division of Market Research Group, and ...

Noah, my younger brother, does not talk. Nor can he dress himself, prepare a meal for himself or wipe himself. He is a 42-year-old man, balding, gaunt, angry and, literally, crazy. And having spent 15 years at the Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa, Calif., a state facility, Noah has picked up the con's trick of lashing out before anyone could take a shot at him. Noah's autism has been marked by "three identified high priority maladaptive behaviors ...

A policeman was killed Friday during a day-long siege with a gunman at a house in the town of Napier, in New Zealand's north island. In the United States, the total number of confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus, as swine flu is officially called, nearly doubled to 1,639 from the day before, with reports coming from 43 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Dr. Sylvie Briand, acting director of the Global Influenza Programme at WHO, told ...

Both people who died of swine flu in the United States had pre-existing health problems, federal health authorities said Thursday in a report. The 22-month-old child who died April 27 of the flu, also called H1N1, had neonatal myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disease, said the report, which was written by a virus investigation team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The child -- who was from Mexico and ...

Mexico lowered its swine flu alert one notch Thursday as more than 6 million students returned to classes and thousands of shuttered businesses reopened their doors. The alert went from orange (elevated) to yellow (medium). Mexico has reported 1,112 laboratory-confirmed cases, including 42 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The government had ordered all schools and non-essential businesses closed as the nation battled the H1N1 flu epidemic, but Mexico City press office spokesman Salvador Macías said Wednesday that businesses ...

The Philippines has asked boxing idol Manny Pacquiao to delay his hero's return to the country as a precaution against the spread of swine flu from the United States. Pacquiao, considered by many to be the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, cemented his reputation Saturday night when he knocked out British boxer Ricky Hatton in the second round of a match in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 30-year-old is a national hero in the Philippines where his bouts bring the ...

Roy Braswell was 9 years old when the flu pandemic of 1918 hit. "I know it's a bad feeling, 'cause I had it," said Braswell, 100, who now lives in Cobb County in Georgia. "It makes you have headaches, you be out of your head, you don't know nothing." Margaret Duchez, 94, did not have the flu, but remembers that in 1918 her grandmother locked the door so that she couldn't go outside during the pandemic. In her community ...

Swine flu is going to college. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that a Notre Dame student tested positive for swine flu — school officials in Indiana said the undergraduate had not been to Mexico recently — and the University of Delaware has started screening students in a special clinic after four cases of influenza that meet probable definitions for swine flu popped on campus. With hordes of undergrads returning from spring-break trips across the ...