MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

A/H1N1 flu deaths in Argentina climb to 62

Sanitary summit in Buenos Aires headed by Minister Mansur

Argentine authorities confirmed Sunday that the number of A/H1N1 virus flu official deaths had risen to 62 on Sunday, (55 on Saturday) while on Monday becomes effective the decision to begin the schools and universities recess, in a desperate effort to try and contain the spread of the disease.

The two weeks winter holidays for schools usually begin after mid July but they were advanced and extended to the whole month.

On Monday the federal government sanitary officials will be holding a meeting with all provincial health officials in Buenos Aires to consider a new approach to the spread of the virus and assess how successful current measures have been in containing the contagion.

The meeting will be chaired by Health Minister Juan Mansur who again on Sunday appealed to “individual and social responsibility” to prevent the pandemic from continuing to expand.

On Sunday the central province of Cordoba reported the first A/H1N1 virus death: a young woman of 26. Most deaths in Argentina have been reported in the province of Buenos Aires and in the federal capital Buenos Aires.

Minister Mansur also revealed that Argentine scientists were working trying to decipher the virus A/H1N1 genome to determine which should be the appropriate vaccine when this becomes available.

“We are trying to decipher the virus genome so that when the vaccine is effectively available we can determine what is going to be useful to combat the strain circulating in Argentina”, he said.

“The virus is highly volatile, it can mutate and its evolution could be different in Argentina, which is now in winter compared to the summer situation in the northern hemisphere”.-