WHO Working On Formulas To Model Swine Flu Spread
GENEVA — The World Health Organization said Wednesday it is working to mathematically model the spread of swine flu in an attempt to better understand how the outbreak developed from a handful of cases to a global epidemic in less than two months. WHO brought together over 20 independent experts beginning Wednesday for the three-day meeting in Geneva. "They will be working together to describe and predict the behavior and impact of the pandemic, and demonstrate potential outcomes of proposed intervention efforts," spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi told The Associated Press. The meeting comes as it becomes clearer that actual case numbers may be far higher than the agency's tally of officially diagnosed infections. According to WHO's latest update Wednesday, a total of 77,201 confirmed cases and 332 deaths have been reported in over 110 countries. But U.S. health officials said last week the number of Americans infected with the new A(H1N1) virus may be as high as 1 million. The estimate by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention was based on mathematical modeling and surveys by health officials. "We're now probably off by orders of magnitude in terms of the real number of cases versus the number of diagnosed cases," said Andrew Pekosz, a flu expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. (Cont)
Source: The Associated Press, FRANK JORDANS
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