FRESH WAVE OF SWINE FLU INFECTS THOUSANDS IN MEXICO

       Mexico was hit with 1,341 new swine flu cases since Monday, bringing the total to 26,338 ahead of the usual autumn flu season, health officials said yesterday.
       The Health Ministry said one more person died from the A(H1N1) virus between Monday and Thursday, bringing the death toll to 218 in the country where the virus first emerged in April before becoming a pandemic. In late August, Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova estimated nearly one million people could be infected by the virus during the winter, out of a total population of 100 million in Mexico.
       The official global flu death toll has reached 3,486, up 281 from a week ago, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which has reported 296,471 known cases of infection. That number is seenas far below actual figures as some countries lack systematic analysis.
       The UN agency said the Americas region still has the highest death toll, at 2,625. The Asia-Pacific region reported 620 official fatalities, while Europe recorded at least 140 deaths.
       In the Middle East, 61 people succumbed to the virus while in Africa, 40 people have died from it.
       The WHO on Friday warned that the production of swine flu vaccines will fall "substantially" short of the amount needed to protect the global population.
       "Current supplies of pandemic vaccine are inadequate for a world population in which virtually everyone is susceptible to infection by a new and readily contagious virus," WHO director general Margaret Chan said.
       Despite new evidence that only one dose of the vaccines currently being tested will be enough for most people, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said output next year will be "sub-stantially less" than the 4.9 billion doeses annual production forecast.
       Some 25 pharmaceutical laboratories working on vaccines have indicated that weekly production is lower than 94 million doses, he said.
       In May, the WHO had forecast a weekly output of 94.3 million doses if full scale vaccine production was launched.
       But pharmaceutical companies have in recent weeks slashed their production expectations due to poorer than expected yields from the so-called "seed virus" strians developed by WHO-approved laboratories.
       Amid growing fears that poorer nations will not get enough vaccines, the United States led nine countries which on Thursday pledged to make 10 per cent of their swine flu vaccine supply available to other nations in need.
       The UN health agency's chief applauded the move the United States, Australia, Brazil, Britain, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.

       Mexico Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova estimated nearly 1 million people could be infected.