Obama asks Congress for 1.5 billion dollars for flu (2nd Lead)

Apr 28, 2009, 19:46 GMT

Washington - US President Barack Obama is asking Congress for an extra 1.5 billion dollars to fight the swine flu outbreak that has spread to five US states, his spokesman said Tuesday.

The money will be used to 'enhance the nation's capability to stop the spread,' including stockpiling anti-viral drugs and develop and 'ramp up production' of a vaccine, said Robert Gibbs.

Gibbs dismissed the suggestion that the funding request indicated a new level of concern by the White House. 'In our opinion, this is about prudent planning,' he said.

The number of US human swine influenza cases in the United States increased to 64 in five states, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday.

The worst-affected was New York City, with 45 cases, while California reported 10 cases. There were 6 cases in Texas, 2 in Kansas and 1 in Ohio.

Those who've fallen ill in the US range in age from 7-54 years, with a median age of 16 years. Five people have so far been hospitalized - three in California and two in Texas. There have been no deaths in the US.

'As this moves forward we will see deaths from this infection ... in this country,' CDC acting director Richard Besser warned.

'This is a situation that is rapidly changing ... as we continue to look for cases, as this flu virus infects individuals, we will be seeing a broader spectrum of disease.'

There is still no vaccine to treat this strain of swine flu in what Besser called a 'pre-pandemic' period, and current seasonal flu vaccines don't have protective value for this new strain.

But the White House spokesman said that 12 million doses of anti- viral drugs were being distributed to the states affected. Some of the additional funds will also be used in assisting international outbreaks of the swine flu, Gibbs said.

There are few confirmed reports of serious illness in the US, and the infections have been self-resolving, with the disease running its course and the patients recovering. However, on Tuesday, a California newspaper quoted a medical examiner as saying one, possibly two, people had died of the illness.

Mexico is experiencing the worst outbreak, with 152 deaths from an influenza-type illness, but only seven deaths have been attributed to swine flu. Small numbers of non-fatal cases have also been confirmed in a number of other countries.

In response to the intensifying outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 4, which means they have determined that the virus is spread through sustained person-to-person contact.

The CDC and State Department issued an advisory late Monday urging against non-essential travel to Mexico, in effect through July. Janet Napolitano, US Secretary of Homeland Security, said the US embassy in Mexico City had suspended all non-essential activitities.

Health experts were struggling to understand swine flu, which has genetic elements that come from three species - pigs, birds and humans - and has never been seen before. They were still looking for the origins of the virus.

Swine flu has proved to be transmissible and no one has a natural immunity to it. WHO cautioned that while raising the alert to Phase 4 indicated the likelihood of a pandemic, it didn't mean that a pandemic was inevitable.

People suffering from swine flu display the same symptoms as seasonal flu. The latter is also a major public health concern in the United States.

According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, each year seasonal influenza kills more than 36,000 people and hospitalizes 200,000 others in the US.

Worldwide, annual epidemics cause about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths. These viruses change quickly, creating new strains that require new vaccines each year and threaten the emergence of a pandemic form.