the art of pig = swine flu

A map of the infected countries of the H1N1 flu of 2009:

black: confirmed deaths and infections

orange: confirmed infections

yellow: unconfirmed infections

The human swine flu outbreak continues to grow in the United States and internationally.
Today, CDC reports additional cases of confirmed swine influenza and a number of hospitalizations of swine flu patients. Internationally, the situation is more serious too, with additional countries reporting confirmed cases of swine flu.
In response to the intensifying outbreak, the World Health Organization raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 4. A Phase 4 alert is characterized by confirmed person-to-person spread of a new influenza virus able to cause “community-level” outbreaks.”

The increase in the pandemic alert phase indicates that the likelihood of a pandemic has increased.People start to wear mask to avoid from being infected by the swine flu virus!!

Swine influenza - WHO update
"28 April 2009--The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 19:15 GMT, 28 April 2009, seven countries have officially reported cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 64 laboratory confirmed human cases, with no deaths. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.
The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Canada (6), New Zealand (3), the United Kingdom (2), Israel (2) and Spain (2).......... "

More info about Swine Flu which i get from few websites:

Swine influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs first isolated in swine in 1930, according to CDC. The illness is caused by four different type A influenza strains that can cause outbreaks in pigs, though subtypes H1N1 and H3N2 seem to be more common.

How do people get infected?
Human infection happens intermittently, with most cases occurring when patients have direct contact with pigs.

But cases of an infected person transmitting the swine flu to others have also been documented, says the CDC. (A 1988 outbreak in pigs in Wisconsin led to multiple human infections, and there was evidence that a patient transmitted the virus to health care workers.)

Human-to-human infections do occur similar to the way the human seasonal flu virus is transmitted — through coughing, sneezing and coming in contact with a person or object with the virus.
People cannot become infected by eating pork or pork products. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160F kills the virus as well as other bacteria, notes the CDC.

Symptoms are similar to those of the regular human influenza virus: fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some who have been infected with the swine flu also reported having a runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

The H1N1 swine flu viruses are antigenically very different from human H1N1 viruses and, therefore, vaccines for human seasonal flu would not provide protection from H1N1 swine flu viruses.There is currently no human vaccine for swine flu, but the flu vaccine may provide some protection against the H3N2 strain, though not the H1N1 strain.

Futher reading?..click links related to swine flu below:

Centers for disease control and prevention

WHO

pandemicflu.gov

webmd