A month ago, Britain's Health Secretary Andy Burnham issued a statement urging British citizens not to panic despite a surge in cases of H1N1 influenza virus in the country. Now it seems health officials have the opposite problem, and are urging parents not to hold "swine flu parties" which some people believe will build up children's immunity by infecting them with the virus. Parents in Britain have long held "chicken pox parties" at the beginning of summer so that ...

Health experts are warning parents against holding "swine flu parties" in the hope of infecting their children with the H1N1 virus. Talk of swine flu parties has emerged on Internet forums. The idea is that exposing a child to the H1N1 virus while it remains relatively mild will give the child immunity if the virus returns in a more virulent form later on. The idea is an extension of chicken pox and measles parties that were once a popular way ...

A 19-year-old prostitute working in an apartment that doubles as a brothel said she has up to eight clients a day. Working in the southern boom city of Shenzhen, a special economic zone just north of Hong Kong, she told CNN she worries about getting AIDS, but has her own prevention measures. "I always use condoms or take an injection. The medicine can prevent sexually transmitted diseases," she said. "Some girls do not use prevention measures, but we don't talk ...

Travelers to China who display flu-like symptoms may be randomly quarantined over concerns of the swine flu virus, the U.S. State Department warned. There have been cases of children being separated from parents after either tested positive for the virus, also known as H1N1, a travel alert said Friday. Chinese officials may give medications to minors in such cases without consulting their parents, according to the alert. "Although the proportion of arriving Americans being quarantined remains low, the random nature ...

Cell phone technology is helping developing nations prepare for disease threats such as a new strain of swine flu, an outbreak of measles or the increased spread of HIV. Kenya proved it in 2007, when the East African nation suffered its first case of the polio virus in more than 20 years, said Yusuf Ajack Ibrahim, a health care worker at the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation. As thousands of Somalis fled to Kenya to avoid violence in ...

A person with swine flu died in Scotland on Sunday, the government announced, marking the first known death of a swine flu patient outside of the Americas, according to the latest World Health Organization information. The patient who died in Scotland had "underlying health conditions," the Scottish government statement said. No information was released about the patient. "We are now waiting for the results of the death certificate to determine the cause of death," the statement said. A ...

The number of swine flu cases is closer to reaching 30,000, the World Health Organization reported Friday, a day after declaring the start of a global pandemic. As of Friday, 29,669 cases of the H1N1 virus have been reported in 74 countries, the WHO said. The total number of deaths worldwide has reached 145. The latest figures come a day after the WHO said the virus was "unstoppable" and had become widespread enough to raise the global swine ...

The World Health Organization scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday to decide whether to declare a global swine flu pandemic as confirmed cases of H1N1 virus continue to soar worldwide. By early Thursday morning, the U.N. health agency had recorded more than 27,700 cases in 74 countries, with 141 deaths. Also Thursday, authorities in Hong Kong ordered the closure of all elementary schools, kindergartens and day-care centers in the city after 12 students were found to be infected with the ...

A sharp increase in the number of reported cases of the H1N1 virus in Australia may prompt the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the first global pandemic in over forty years. The number of Australian cases of the virus, commonly known as swine flu, has reached more than 1,200, with state and federal medical officers set to hold an emergency meeting in Sydney to review the country's swine flu protection measures. "We will take each decision along the way ...

Mexico's tourism industry has endured some brutal punches this year. First, the global financial crisis hampered vacation spending. Then, escalating cartel drug violence scared some travelers. Business went from bad to worse in late April, with the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus, also known as swine flu. The virus has infected more than 12,500 people worldwide, with the highest death toll in Mexico, causing some U.S. travelers to reroute, delay or cancel trips to Mexico completely. American travelers, ...