The new swine flu virus is spreading rapidly around the United States, and more than half of the states are reporting unusually high levels of flu-like illness at a time of year when the respiratory disease usually disappears, federal health officials said yesterday.

About half of the people with flu are testing positive for the new virus, indicating it is playing a significant role in the unusual pattern of disease, officials said.

“We would be expecting to see the season to be slowing down or almost completely stopped,” said Daniel Jernigan of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But what we’re seeing is there are some areas that actually have reports of the amounts of respiratory disease . . . that are equivalent to peak influenza season.”

The unusual activity comes as two more U.S. deaths were reported from swine flu, bringing the total in the United States to at least five. A 33-year-old man succumbed in Corpus Christi, Tex., May 6, bringing that state’s total to three, while a woman in her late 40s died last week in Maricopa County in Arizona, marking that state’s first death. Washington state had previously reported a death.

Source/Full Story: washingtonpost.com

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