Swine flu 'spreading widely': Officials

Health officials have said the so-called swine flu is spreading widely in the US and Japan and is likely to circulate worldwide.

The H1N1 flu outbreak has put the world on the brink of a pandemic and ministers and experts are meeting in Geneva to discuss how to fight the virus with vaccines and drugs.

'The outbreak is not over,' senior US official Richard Besser said at the World Health Organisation's World Health Assembly.

Japan has confirmed that 125 people, many of whom had not been abroad, have been infected with the new strain.

New York has recorded its first death from the virus and Chile reported its first two cases.

40 countries have now confirmed cases of the disease.

Almost all the 74 deaths have been in Mexico. However, mostly people have only had relatively mild symptoms and there has been no decision yet on raising the alert level to six.

Mr Besser, head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was 'widespread transmission' in the US, although he said the virus was not highly virulent for now.

The WHO said yesterday it was watching the situation in Japan closely, but that it was not clear whether the outbreak, the largest outside the Americas, would trigger the declaration of a full pandemic.

Under WHO rules, signs that the disease is spreading in a sustained way in a second region of the world would prompt a declaration that a full pandemic is under way.

Other large clusters have been seen in Spain and Britain, WHO said.

A WHO designation of phase 6 flu would put countries on even higher alert about the flu strain and give more impetus to pharmaceutical efforts to create drugs and vaccines to fight it.

The Japanese health ministry said most of the new infections were among high school students in the western prefectures of Hyogo and Osaka who had not travelled abroad.

Chile's health minister confirmed the country's first cases of the flu in two Chilean women who had returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic.

First death from flu in New York

Dr Andrew Rubin, a spokesman for Flushing Hospital Medical Centre, said 55-year-old Mitchell Wiener died after being admitted several days ago with the A(H1N1) flu virus.

It was the first death in New York City, where many of the US cases have been reported but with mostly mild symptoms.

Mr Wiener was the assistant principal of Intermediate School 236 in Hollis in Queens.

The school was one of several city schools to be shut after the illness hit patients and staff members.

Three additional schools have been closed from today in Queens for up to five school days after officials documented increasing levels of influenza-like illnesses.

City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden warned it was possible that in the coming days there will be people with severe illness from flu, particularly among people who have underlying health problems.

The department said it would evaluate more school closings on the case-by-case basis.

No further NI cases

The Stormont Health Minister says passengers who shared a flight with the Northern Ireland's first swine flu sufferer do not appear to have been infected.

Michael McGimpsey said health officials have contacted the 150 people who were on the easyJet flight from London's Gatwick airport to Belfast along with a man from Antrim, later confirmed as Northern Ireland's first swine flu victim.

The man was travelling home with his family after a holiday in Mexico.

20 people on the flight to Belfast were treated with antiviral drugs.

The minister said 76 passengers from the flight were resident in Northern Ireland and the remaining travellers were being dealt with by their local health authorities in Britain.

'As the flight is now more than seven days old the advice is that the risk of infection is very low,' he added.