Seventy-three cases of swine flu have been confirmed worldwide, the World Health Organization said Monday.
Forty of those cases are in the United States, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada and one in Spain, a WHO representative said.
Later Monday, health officials in Scotland said two cases of swine flu had been confirmed there.
Hundreds more cases are suspected, especially in Mexico, where as many as 103 deaths are thought to have been caused by the virus, the country’s health minister said. More than 2,000 cases have been reported but not confirmed in the country.
Federal officials confirmed 20 new U.S. cases on Monday.
It would be wonderful if our government had been prepared for this type of occurrence. Unfortunately, Republicans stripped funding for Pandemic Preparedness out of the recent stimulus package.
That was $900 million that would come in handy right now in dealing with this swine flu crisis except that “fiscally conservative” Republicans axed it from the bill. They called it, ironically enough, “pork.”
Oh, and if fighting to keep the government ill-prepared for a pandemic crisis such as this one wasn’t enough, we can also thank Republicans for the fact that we still don’t have a Secretary of Health and Human Services in place in the midst of the biggest health care crisis in years because they have beenholding up her confirmation on account of her pro-choice position on abortion.
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