A member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has dismissed claims that more than 150 people have died from swine flu, saying it has officially recorded only seven deaths around the world.
Reports have put the likely death toll from the virus at 152, with Mexican officials confirming 20 deaths.
The number of cases under observation in Mexico alone has reportedly reached 1614.
But Vivienne Allan, from WHO's patient safety program, said the body had confirmed that worldwide there had been just seven deaths - all in Mexico - and 79 confirmed cases of the disease.
"Unfortunately that (150-plus deaths) is incorrect information and it does happen, but that's not information that's come from the World Health Organisation," Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.
"That figure is not a figure that's come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico."
Ms Allan said WHO had confirmed 40 cases of swine flu in the Americas, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada, two in Spain, two in the UK and three in New Zealand.
Ms Allan said it was difficult to measure how fast the virus was spreading.
She said a real concern would be if the flu virus manifested in a country where a person had had no contact with Mexico, and authorities were watching all countries for signs of that.
And indeed, when I look back at WHO's update 4, posted in haste earlier today, I see that it does indeed say 26 confirmed human cases and seven deaths in Mexico.
Here we have a problem that Flublogia has wrestled with for years. Rumours abound. Suspected cases of bird flu pop up, often fatal, but vanish without confirmation. Believe every report, and you wouldn't expect any of us to still be alive.
So for bird flu we've relied on the officially confirmed
WHO tally of cases and deaths, last updated on April 23. If you look at Indonesia's tally for 2009, you'll see not a single case. This is not because the country has freed itself from H5N1, but because it doesn't officially give WHO the time of day.
Moreover, Indonesian policy is to test for H5N1 locally and then release official news of cases and deaths whenever it pleases—although the International Health Regulations, to which Indonesia is a signatory, require it to report such cases at once.
The local media often report suspected and confirmed cases, and Flublogia learns about them through the newshounds, selfless searchers who will do computer translations from Bahasa Indonesia and pass along the garbled English versions.
According to those reports, least six Indonesians seem to have died of H5N1 since January, but officially they're still alive. Dr. Supari and WHO probably know exactly how many cases the country's had this year. But she's not talking, and WHO can't tell us until she does.
I suspect that something similar is happening here, though not out of political fiddling. H1N1 has hit so fast, in a country dealing with recession, drug wars, and other sorrows, that the process of testing, confirming, and informing just can't cope.
Technically, Ms Allan is right: 29 cases, seven deaths, end of story. But the stories coming out of the hospitals haven't ended at all, and WHO must understand that. Otherwise, it wouldn't have referred to the "rapid evolution" of the outbreak.
With Mexico's healthcare system (and economy) under such stress, it may be weeks, or never, before the clerks catch up with the gravediggers. Until then, WHO is within its rights to stick to numbers that the news media have long outrun.
But I'm confident (and sorry) that in a day or two, the official Mexican death toll will be far higher than seven.
