CDC: Swine flu now in 11 states

WASHINGTON -- The swine flu outbreak spread to 11 U.S. states Wednesday, closing schools amid confirmation of the first U.S. death.

Some 100 schools were closed, and more might need to be shut down temporarily, President Obama said, declaring, "This obviously is a serious situation." The total confirmed cases in the U.S. rose to nearly 100, with many more suspected.

The Geneva-based World Health Organization sounded its own alarm, raising its alert level to one notch below a full-fledged global pandemic. It was the first time the WHO had declared a Phase 5 outbreak, indicating a pandemic could be imminent.

WHO director general Margaret Chan said: "It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."

Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there were confirmed cases in 10 states, including 51 in New York, 16 in Texas and 14 in California. The CDC counted scattered cases in Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada and Ohio.

State officials in Maine said laboratory tests had confirmed three cases in that state, not yet included in the CDC count.

Wednesday evening, the governors of Missouri and Tennessee said their respective states each had a probable case of swine flu. Neither case has been confirmed.

Gov. Jay Nixon said Missouri's case is in Platte County, which covers part of Kansas City. His office said the tests to confirm swine flu will take about two days.

Also, Illinois officials cited nine "likely cases," most of them in the Chicago area, and three schools were shut down.

The Pentagon said a Marine at the Twentynine Palms base in California had been confirmed to be ill with swine flu and was isolated, along with his roommate. A Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, Maj. David Nevers, said the sick Marine was doing well and his condition continued to improve.

In Mexico, where the flu is believed to have originated, officials said Wednesday that the disease was now suspected in 168 deaths and nearly 2,500 illnesses.

Mexico's government also announced that it is temporarily suspending all nonessential activity of the federal government and private business.

Health Secretary Jose Cordova said nonessential federal government offices will be closed from Friday to Tuesday. He said all nonessential private businesses must also close for that period but essential services like transport, supermarkets, trash collection and hospitals will remain open.

Despite calls from many U.S. lawmakers for tightening controls over the Mexico-U.S. border, administration officials ruled out that option.

"Closing our nation's borders is not merited here," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at a midafternoon briefing.

She said closing borders or U.S. ports would have enormous adverse economic consequences and would have "no impact or very little" to help stop the spread of the virus.

"This virus is already in the United States. Any containment theory ... is really moot at this time," Napolitano said.

Obama offered "my thoughts and prayers" to the family of a nearly 2-year-old Mexican boy who died in Houston, the first confirmed U.S. fatality among more than five dozen infections. Health officials in Texas said the child had traveled with his family from Mexico to Brownsville on April 4 and had been sick for five days before being hospitalized there.

He then was brought to Houston where he died Monday night.

Texas called off all public high school athletic and academic competitions at least until May 11 due to the outbreak.

The Senate's top Republican said the spread was a "very worrisome situation and we're all following it very closely." Said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky: "We stand ready to closely work with the administration to protect the American people as this situation unfolds."

Laboratory testing showed the new virus was treatable by the anti-flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza, and the first shipments from a federal stockpile arrived Wednesday in New York City and several other locations. The government was shipping to states enough medication to treat 11 million people as a precaution. All states should get their share by May 3. No shortages had been reported -- there was plenty in regular pharmacies, federal health officials said.

A pandemic is an epidemic that has expanded globally. The swine flu has now been reported on four continents. Germany and Austria became the latest countries to report infections. Germany reported four cases Wednesday, Austria one.

New Zealand's total rose to 14. Britain had earlier reported five cases, Spain four. There were 13 cases in Canada and two in Israel.

The disease is not spread by eating pork and U.S. officials appeared to go out of their way Wednesday to not call the strain "swine flu." Obama called the bug the "H1N1 virus," and other administration officials followed his lead.

"The disease is not a food-borne illness," Rear Adm. Anne Schuchat, CDC's interim science and public health deputy director, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

She said the strain is particularly worrisome because "it's a virus that hasn't been around before. The general population doesn't have immunity from it."

People have various levels of protection against other more common types of flu because they are exposed to it over time, and that protection accumulates. She suggested that some older people might have more resistance to this particular strain than younger people because its traits might resemble outbreaks of decades ago.

Obama said it is the recommendation of public health officials that authorities at schools with confirmed or suspected cases of swine flu "should strongly consider temporarily closing so that we can be as safe as possible."

However, former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, on her first full day on the job as health and human services secretary, said school closings cause "a large ripple effect."

"What happens to the parents? Where do those children go? Do you close the day care center if a younger sibling is there?" Sebelius asked at a briefing for reporters.

Obama noted he had asked Congress for $1.5 billion in emergency funds to help build more drug stockpiles and monitor future cases, as well as help international efforts to avoid a full-fledged pandemic.