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(Best Syndication News) Typically influenza spreads during the winter when people are indoors, but the swine flu has spread during the summer poising the northern hemisphere for a winter flu epidemic. The bad news is that the H1N1 Swine Flu is spreading so fast that the World Health Organization (WHO) has stopped tracking it.

“In past pandemics, influenza viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks,” a representative of the WHO said. They said the spread of the swine flu through every country in the world is “inevitable”.

“Moreover, the counting of individual cases is now no longer essential in such countries for monitoring either the level or nature of the risk posed by the pandemic virus or to guide implementation of the most appropriate response measures.”

The swine flu is killing both healthy and unhealthy people. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that since June 11, 2009, when the WHO declared a pandemic, then number of countries reporting cases of novel H1N1 nearly doubled.

In the United States there have been some intense “outbreaks” according to the CDC spokesperson. Even though the flu season is in the southern hemisphere right now, cases have spread through the US. “The United States continues to report the largest number of novel H1N1 cases of any country worldwide… (but) people who have become ill have recovered without requiring medical treatment.”

There are concerns. It is uncertain how sever the virus will become once school starts in the northern hemisphere. It is uncertain how effective the vaccine will be if the virus mutates.

By Marsha Quinn
Health Reporter