(A)H1N1 Pandemic
Influenza A (H1N1) is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus which mutated out of four different strains of the influenza A virus found in pigs, human and birds.
The outbreak began in Mexico in April 2009, spreading across the Americas and Asia in a matter of months. Due to its unprecedented spread across the globe, the H1N1 outbreak was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in June 2009.
Although most who contract the disease recover immediately, doctors have warned that the virus strain may still evolve into a more virulent form, causing wide-scale fatalities as in the case of the Spanish flu in 1918, or the Hong Kong flu in 1968.
The first case of H1N1 in the Philippines was on May 18, 2009. By June, the country reported its first H1N1 fatality. Despite efforts by the Department of Health to slow the spread of the disease, the infected in the Philippines now number in the thousands. Although most recover without complications, the DOH has projected that up to a quarter of the country's 90 million people might become infected.
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