November 15, 2009 - CDC Reports A/H1N1 Has Infected 22 Million Americans, Killed Nearly 3,500 Adults and 540 Children Since April 2009.

No one knows what will happen next because this novel A/H1N1 persisted through the 2009 summer, increased in September, earlier than normal seasonal flu, and is still widespread in North America and flaring in other parts of the world such as the Ukraine. Will this H1N1 decline before the normal end of flu season in February?

“We've been tracking influenza for decades.
What we are seeing in 2009 is unprecedented.”
- Anne Schuchat, Director, CDC National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases


Today, Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
visited flu victims at a hospital in the western Ukrainian
city of Lutsk. Image © 2009 by AFP/Getty.

U. K.'s Daily Mail reported today: “British scientists are examining the strain of swine flu behind a deadly Ukrainian outbreak to see if the virus has mutated. A total of 189 people have died and more than one million have been infected in the country. An unnamed doctor in western Ukraine told of the alarming effects of the virus: ‘We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal. They look like they have been burned.’” The World Health Organization reports the intense Ukrainian H1N1 outbreak has slowed down in its rapid spread. The next step is to see if that Ukraine A/H1N1 virus has mutated to a more virulent strain