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Africa News, 19 July - Swine flu in Cape Verde - The Cape Verdean health services have confirmed the contamination of a new person by the swine flu (H1N1), bring to four the number of cases recorded in the archipelago, official sources told PANA in Praia.
The victim is a Cape Verdean female student, in the Sao Vicente Island, who recently came back from Brasilia, the Brazilian capital, a country where the flu is ravaging the country.
On Friday, the student was notified by the health services in Sao Vicente that she had been infected and her samples were sent for test to the Pasteur Institute of Dakar in Senegal which confirmed the presence of the H1N1 virus in her body.
So far, the Cape Verdean authorities have carried out tests on 22 suspected cases out of which four turned out positive, 15 negative and the results of three others are still being awaited.
Cape Verde sends its samples to Senegal for confirmation because it does not have laboratories well equipped to screen for the swine flu virus.
The first three cases were confirmed on 22 June to have infected three children (aged between three and 10 years) of the same family.
According to the Cape Verdean Health minister, Basilio Ramos, the latest case was detected following the strict testing programme on passengers arriving from countries where the disease is rampant, especially the US, Brazil, England, Spain and Portugal.
Cape Verde has an estimated population of 500,000.
Swine flu: Cape Verde strengthens national swine flu control
Africa News, 19 May - Cape Verde has strengthened its national swine flu control in sea ports, airports and hospitals in a bid to forestall possible swine flu cases in the country, Cape Verdian Health Minister Basilio Ramos told PANA.
"We are extremely vigilant for we know that the swine flu virus has no border," he said.
"We put in place a technical cell to make sure that everything is right nationwide. Generally, we never lower our guards against epidemics and have strengthened control operations," said Mr. Ramos, who was on a visit to Paris.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 40 countries have officially reported 9,830 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection, including 79 deaths.
No human case of swine flu has been confirmed in Africa.
