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A World Health Organization (WHO) official announced on Monday that the swine flu pandemic has grown “unstoppable” and that all countries need access to vaccines as seven (7) new deaths were reported coming from Britain, Thailand and the Philippines. As the death toll increases, the WHO official said that a swine flu vaccine should be available by September and that all countries would need to be able to protect themselves.

Health workers should be the top priority for the vaccines since they will be in high demand as people continue to get sick. Pregnant women and anyone over six months old with chronic health problems should be next in the list of priorities, said the WHO official. A special attention should also be given to children since they are considered “amplifiers” of the spread of the virus, especially when gathered in schools.

Despite having a total of 1, 367 patients who recovered from the A(H1N1) or the “swine flu” infections in the Philippines, still it has ranked No. 8 worldwide in terms of confirmed cases, overtaking Argentina and Japan. The World Health Organization (WHO), in its latest pandemic update issued on July 3, showed the Philippines with a total of 1,709 confirmed cases while Japan has 1,466 and Argentina with 1,587.

In Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranked first, surpassing Thailand with 1, 414 cases of influenza infections. However, A(H1N1) related deaths in the Philippines are lower with only one case documented since the outbreak of the flu virus in April. The United States still remains as the country with the most number of deaths at 170, followed by Mexico with 119 deaths.

A total of 89,921 cases have already been recorded by WHO, following the discovery of 12,520 newly confirmed cases. These cases are mostly from the US with 6,185, Mexico withe 1,582, Chile with 1,165, United Kingdom with 909 and the Philippines with 848 new cases.

After the World Health Organization declared Pandemic Alert Level 6, the Department of Health declared last night the first community-level outbreak of Influenza A(H1N1) in a village in Jaen town, Nueva Ecija.

The confirmation of 10 more cases of grade school students and a four year-old child  and the infection of 92 others prompted the said declaration made by the DOH.

Dr. Eric Tayag, chief of the National Epidemiology Center (NEC), confirmed the “community-level” transmission of the virus. Doctors and local health officials are still monitoring 57 other students of the Hilera Elementary School for symptoms of the flu virus.

Classes in the school in Barangay Hilera were suspended after the initial outbreak and will remain suspended for 10 more days.