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UN chief: Swine flu becomes public health emergency of int'l concern

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-04-28 00:18

UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said here Monday that "The (swine flu) situation is evolving fast and constitutes a public health emergency of international concern."

The statement came as Ban was delivering his opening address to the special high-level meeting of the United Nations with the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

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"One of our Member States is faced with a swine flu outbreak of serious proportions," he said, "My thoughts go to the government of Mexico and to the families of the victims of this influenza."

"Reports I am receiving show that the virus is spreading and has even reached us here in the United States," he said, "The situation is evolving fast and constitutes a public health emergency of international concern."

In the United States, tests confirmed on Sunday that eight students at a private Catholic high school in New York City had contracted the same strain of the swine flu that has ravaged Mexico. Some of the school's students had visited Cancun on a spring break trip two weeks ago.

Swine flu cases were also reported in other places in the United States, including Texas State, and Kansas City.

In Mexico, health officials say a strain of swine flu has killed up to 86 people and sickened 1,400, reports said.

Canada became the third country to confirm human cases of swine flu Sunday with public health officials reporting six people falling ill in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

Under Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), "the UN system is actively working with all concerned governments, especially those of Mexico and the United States, to rapidly scale up support in controlling the outbreak," the secretary-general added.