Pandemic fears
May 2, 2009
The German health ministry confirmed on Friday that a nurse had been inflicted with the H1N1 virus after treating a patient carrying it.
The nurse in Regensburg in Bavaria, who has not been to Mexico recently, has now recovered, the health ministry said. Germany's other three confirmed cases are in people who had recently returned from Mexico. Another case is still unconfirmed in Cologne.
"This is the first time that an infection has occurred within Germany," said Joerg Hacker, head of the Robert-Koch-Institute, the country's disease control and prevention agency in Berlin.
Hacker said a team of experts from the Robert-Koch-Institute had been dispatched to Bavaria. He added that they would help in preventing a potential spread of the virus and try and gather more detailed information on it.
"The new case shows that further transmissions must be reckoned with in Germany," Hacker said. "We are prepared for the situation and this new development doesn't change our strategy."
Germany is the second European nation to report a transmission within its borders. Spain's 13 confirmed cases also include one person who had not recently traveled to Mexico, but contracted the disease from his girlfriend, who had visited the country. Domestic transmissions have also occurred in the United States and Mexico, according to Hacker.
"The virus has the potency to spread and it has the potential to change genetically and that's why we remain concerned and watchful," Hacker said.
"Germany is well armed"
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany is prepared if the virus does spread. Merkel told the newspaper, Neuen Presse, that "Germany is well-armed to counteract an epidemic, if that occurs.
"We have all the requirements to quickly deal with the situation if it intensifies. Our next step is to speak with all the states, to determine whether we have sufficient stocks of the anti-viral medication," she said.
More cases surface in Europe
France has become the latest European country to confirm cases of the H1N1 flu virus. The French health ministry said a 49-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman, both recently returned from Mexico, had been hospitalised in Paris.
Denmark has also confirmed one case of the virus in a young woman.
Cases have also been confirmed in Britain, Spain, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control says that the European cases are "almost entirely among those returning from Mexico."
The only fatality outside Mexico has been in the United States.
EU rejects travel ban to Mexico
Although Mexico appears to be the epicenter of the virus, EU health ministers have rejected a French proposal to suspend all air travel to the country.
"In the current state of the situation, we are not yet taking this decision," French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot said following an emergency meeting of EU health ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday. However, she added that the plan may be revisited in the future.
Other countries, such as Germany and Spain, have balked at the flight ban proposal, considering it too drastic and having little value, since the outbreak has already spread to four continents.
European ministers also shot down an Italian proposal that member states set up a "drug bank" of flu remedies and vaccines, saying that it was up to each member state to decide how best to deal with health problems.