"Swine Flu"

According to report from World Health Organization (WHO), 29 countries have officially reported 3440 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection. Mexico has reported 1364 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection, including 45 deaths. The United States has reported 1639 laboratory confirmed human cases, including two deaths. Canada has reported 242 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death. The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Argentina (1), Australia (1), Austria (1), Brazil (6), China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1), Colombia (1), Costa Rica (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (12), Germany (11), Guatemala (1), Ireland (1), Israel (7), Italy (6), Japan (3), Netherlands (3), New Zealand (5), Panama (2), Poland (1), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (3), Spain (88), Sweden (1), Switzerland (1) and the United Kingdom (34).

The 2009 flu outbreak in humans, known as "swine flu", is due to a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 that contained genes most closely related to swine influenza. The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) reports that this strain has not been isolated in pigs. Pigs can become infected with human influenza, and this appears to have happened during the 1918 flu pandemic and the 2009 flu outbreak.

The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was an influenza pandemic that spread to nearly every part of the world. It was caused by an unusually virulent and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1.

Although the first cases of the disease were registered in the continental US and the rest of Europe long before getting to Spain, the 1918 Flu received its nickname "Spanish Flu" because Spain, a neutral country in WWI, had no special censorship for news against the disease and its consequences. Hence the most reliable news came from Spain, giving the false impression that Spain was the most—if not the only—affected zone.

Scientists have used tissue samples from frozen victims to reproduce the virus for study. Among the conclusions of this research is that the virus kills via a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system) which explains its unusually severe nature and the concentrated age profile of its victims.

One theory is that the virus strain originated at Fort Riley, Kansas, by two genetic mechanisms – genetic drift and antigenic shift – in viruses in poultry and swine which the fort bred for food; the soldiers were then sent from Fort Riley to different places around the world, where they spread the disease. However, evidence from a recent reconstruction of the virus suggests that it jumped directly from birds to humans, without traveling through swine.

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