As of 0730 GMT Sunday, 29 countries have officially reported 4,379 laboratory confirmed human cases of A/H1N1 infection, Xinhua quoted the World Health Organization (WHO) as saying in a latest report. Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak, has reported 1,626 confirmed cases, including 45 deaths. The United States has reported 2,254 cases, including two deaths. Canada has reported 280 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death. Costa Rica has reported eight confirmed cases, including one death. The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths: Argentina (1), Australia (1), Austria (1), Brazil (6), China's Hong Kong (1), Colombia (1), Denmark (1), El Salvador (2), France (12), Germany (11), Guatemala (1), Ireland (1), Israel (7), Italy (9), Japan (4), the Netherlands (3), New Zealand (7), Panama (3), Poland (1), Portugal (1), Republic of Korea (3), Spain (93), Sweden (1), Switzerland (1) and Britain (39). The WHO has said that it currently has no plan to raise its pandemic alert level to phase 6, the highest level which means a global pandemic is underway. To raise the alert level, there must be enough evidence to show that community-level human-to-human transmission of the new virus has occurred in regions outside North America, it said. The WHO said, however, that it was closely monitoring the situation in European countries such as Spain and Britain, which have reported the largest numbers of cases outside North America.
