swine flu

Nearly 200 swine flu victims were fighting for their lives last night.The number of patients in intensive care has doubled in a week and many of them are either elderly or pregnant. Seventeen of the 190 are being kept alive by highly-specialised heart and lung machines – three times the usual number.

An estimated 57 million Americans have contracted pandemic H1N1 influenza since the outbreak began last April, about 257,000 have been hospitalized with complications from it, and nearly 12,000 have died, according to estimates released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A dog in suburban New York is the first in the nation confirmed to be carrying the same strain of swine flu that is infecting humans, experts said Tuesday.

'As supplies increase things should go better,' says a CDC official, who adds that flu activity is widespread in 48 states and 'virtually everything is H1N1.'

A national emergency conjures up images of major disaster like hurricanes and floods, not something as seemingly innocuous as the flu. But with infection levels rising across the nation, President Obama isn't taking any chances: He declared swine flu a national emergency.