The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received a candidate vaccine virus for swine flu from one institution Friday, spokesman Thomas Skinner said in an e-mail. The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have also created a candidate vaccine virus for swine flu, also known as 2009 H1N1, using reverse genetics, he said. "Suitable viruses will hopefully be sent to manufacturers by end of next week," Skinner wrote. Once that happens, vaccine makers will tweak the virus ...

The number of swine flu cases in Japan are escalating with surprising speed, and health officials are not sure why. The Japanese government on Wednesday confirmed the first two cases of the disease in Tokyo, the world's most populous metropolitan area. Meanwhile, the number of Japanese who have contracted the new flu has more than doubled since May 18 from 130 to 279, a rate of increase that is "without a doubt" the highest in Asia, says Peter Cordingley, ...

In an initial step toward what could be the first wrongful-death suit of its kind, Texas resident Steven Trunnell has filed a petition against Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, based in Virginia, and the owner of a massive pig farm in Perote, Mexico, near the village of La Gloria, where the earliest cases of the new H1N1 flu were detected. Trunnell filed the petition in his home state on behalf of his late wife, Judy Dominguez Trunnell, ...

Few global health decisions have created quite as much commotion as that on April 29, when the World Health Organization , responding to the escalating spread of the H1N1 flu, raised its pandemic alert level for the first time to phase 5, meaning that a full pandemic was considered imminent. As of May 11, the WHO has reported more than 4,600 cases in 30 countries — including 2,600 cases in nearly every state in the U.S., according to the Centers ...

The World Health Organization on Saturday reported 3,440 confirmed cases of swine flu in 29 countries, with 48 deaths from the sickness. The virus, also called H1N1, has spread as Australia reported its first confirmed case. On Friday there were 2,500 confirmed cases in 25 countries. In the United States, the total number of confirmed cases was 1,639 -- the same as Friday. Of the 48 deaths reported, two were in the United States, one was in Canada and 45 ...

The World Health Organization on Friday reported 2,500 confirmed cases of swine flu in 25 countries, with 44 deaths from the disease. 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 reporters in a ...

Waving and cheering like survivors of a disaster, 200 guests of a Hong Kong business hotel who were confined for more than a week due to swine flu left the building Friday. Businessmen, families and tourists marched out of the Hong Kong Metropark Hotel in the Wanchai bar district at 8:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. ET) Friday when the quarantine was lifted. Dragging luggage and carrying purses and backpacks, they were applauded and cheered by hotel workers and local officials, who ...

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 mood at Hong Kong's Metropark Hotel was subdued Thursday -- but only because most of the guests were in their rooms nursing hangovers from a night of partying the evening before. And with good reason. For seven days, the 200 guests and 100 staff members at this modest business hotel in the Wanchai bar district have been in involuntary confinement after health officials determined that a guest there had contracted swine flu. But in another 24 hours -- at ...

Manny Pacquiao has been ordered to delay his triumphant return to the Philippines as a precaution against the spread of swine flu from the United States. The boxing sensation cemented his status as a national hero with a dramatic two-round knockout of Britain's Ricky Hatton in Las Vegas on Saturday night. He was due to return home ahead of a "national day of celebration" on Friday, but that will now have to wait. The Philippines health secretary on Wednesday offered ...