TUES PM: Tributes to Dewsbury swine flu girl
Sameerah, who was born with a rare life-threatening disease, died at Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital after contracting swine flu, although it is unclear if it contributed to her death.
Last week, there were warnings that the number of cases of swine flu could soar to 100,000 a day by the end of next month.
Health chiefs said the UK has moved past the stage of containing the outbreak and into the "treatment phase".
There have been more than 98,000 confirmed cases of swine flu worldwide and more than 400 deaths, the World Health Organisation said today.
Speaking at a press conference in Geneva, WHO assistant director general, Dr Keiji Fukuda, said the H1N1 swine flu virus had been detected in 120 countries.
Governments should now move away from laboratory testing of individual cases to monitoring the spread of the virus by sampling fewer people. The UK has already reached this point.
Dr Fukuda also said there were three cases of people showing resistance to the antiviral Tamiflu - in Denmark, Hong Kong and Japan.
He stressed these remained "sporadic cases" and there was no widespread movement of viruses resistant to Tamiflu.
He added: "In the UK as in many North American countries - Canada, Mexico and the US - there’s been quite widespread activity of this influenza pandemic virus.
"Right now, it’s at the typical point of the year where activity should be low but activity is quite high because it’s a pandemic situation in these countries."
Dr Fukuda said it was difficult to predict what the picture would be for the remainder of the summer, when the number of cases of flu would normally drop off.
"It’s a guess about what will happen in the fall and winter time but it’s likely it will pick up," he added.
