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Here are some of the latest updates on A(H1N1) previously known as swine flu.

1. According to The Washington Post, the flu's true severity is still unknown.

So is this new swine flu outbreak the next great plague, or just a global spasm of paranoia?

Are we seeing a pandemic or a panic?

The pathogen that has seized the world's attention has an official name (swine-origin influenza A H1N1), an acronym (S-OIV), a nickname (swine flu) and an apparent birthplace (Mexico). But the essential nature of the pathogen, its personality, its virulence, remain matters of frenetic investigation. Like all influenza viruses, it is mutating capriciously and, thus, is not a static and predictable public health threat but an evolving one.

The bug has gone global, having shown up in Asia yesterday with the first reported case in Hong Kong. It also popped up in Denmark, as well as in eight new U.S. states.

But there has been some flu-scare backlash, with some officials questioning whether schools are too quick to close their doors at the first hint of the virus.

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2. CBC News (Canada) reported that Swine flu roots have been traced to Spanish flu.

Pigs might have spread the current strain of influenza to humans, attracting worldwide attention, but new Canadian-led research suggests that we might have given pigs the flu in the first place, during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

A group of Canadian and U.S. researchers, writing in the May issue of the Journal of Virology, say experimental testing of how pigs responded to the 1918 Spanish flu supports the theory that the virus was passed on from humans to pigs in 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic.

Both the human influenza virus known as the Spanish flu and a swine respiratory disease occurred at roughly the same time. The first human cases of Spanish flu appeared in spring of 1918 while the first reports of the swine illness were in the fall of that year.

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3. To see the latest confirmed cases in Canada, the U.S., Mexico and other countries around the globe charted in a world map, please GO TO THIS LINK.

4. The Washington Post reports :

The Obama administration has relied on a Bush-era public health strategy aimed at coordinating its response across an array of government agencies in the week since the first reports of a swine flu outbreak emerged, officials say, as it attempts to balance safety concerns with a desire to prevent a panic.

While Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has become the public face of the administration's effort to manage the outbreak, President Obama has been briefed three times a day on his administration's first public-health crisis. Behind the scenes, Deputy National Security Adviser John O. Brennan is coordinating the response to a borderless threat that draws on almost every Cabinet-level agency.

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5. The New York Times reports that action has been taken to prevent hoarding of flu drugs.

Health authorities and drug companies say that supplies are generally ample for the two drugs that would be vital to treating a pandemic caused by swine flu, but that they are acting to prevent hoarding.

Some pharmacies in the United States and some other countries have run out of the drugs, in part because of strong demand from consumers who are not sick but want to have them — just in case.

GlaxoSmithKline is now allocating supplies of its drug, Relenza, to areas of the United States or the world most in need of it, a spokesman for the company said. In France, where there was a run on Tamiflu in pharmacies, Roche, which makes the drug, has stopped supplying it to drugstores to preserve supplies for hospitals.

Health authorities and the manufacturers say that the supply of the two drugs is best in countries that have built stockpiles in the last few years in preparation for a possible pandemic.

“There are no reports, and we don’t expect any reports, of shortages of antivirals in any states,” Dr. Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday at a news conference.

The federal government has a stockpile with enough medicine to treat 50 million people. Some 11 million of those treatments are now being sent to the states, some of which are carefully guarding the stocks in secret locations.

The government is also sending 400,000 treatments to Mexico, which has been hardest hit by the flu strain. The United States government has already ordered 13 million new treatments to replenish the American stockpile. Health authorities and drug companies say that supplies are generally ample for the two drugs that would be vital to treating a pandemic caused by swine flu, but that they are acting to prevent hoarding.

Some pharmacies in the United States and some other countries have run out of the drugs, in part because of strong demand from consumers who are not sick but want to have them — just in case.

GlaxoSmithKline is now allocating supplies of its drug, Relenza, to areas of the United States or the world most in need of it, a spokesman for the company said. In France, where there was a run on Tamiflu in pharmacies, Roche, which makes the drug, has stopped supplying it to drugstores to preserve supplies for hospitals.

Health authorities and the manufacturers say that the supply of the two drugs is best in countries that have built stockpiles in the last few years in preparation for a possible pandemic.

“There are no reports, and we don’t expect any reports, of shortages of antivirals in any states,” Dr. Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday at a news conference.

The federal government has a stockpile with enough medicine to treat 50 million people. Some 11 million of those treatments are now being sent to the states, some of which are carefully guarding the stocks in secret locations.

The government is also sending 400,000 treatments to Mexico, which has been hardest hit by the flu strain. The United States government has already ordered 13 million new treatments to replenish the American stockpile.

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6. The New York Times reports about the quick action of HK authorities:

Six years after SARS paralyzed this city and killed 299 of its citizens, Hong Kong is not taking chances with swine flu.

Within minutes of the confirmation on Friday evening of Asia’s first swine flu case — a 25-year-old traveler from Mexico — the police had cordoned off the hotel where the young man stayed for fewer than seven hours on Thursday afternoon and evening.

More than 200 guests will be quarantined in the building for a week, just in case they were exposed to the virus.

Roughly 100 hotel staff members will also be quarantined for at least one night at the hotel, and then at government vacation camps that are being converted into quarantine centers.

“No one can enter or leave the hotel without the permission of a health officer,” said Dr. Lam Ping-yan, Hong Kong’s director of health.

Everyone who sat in the five rows closest to the Mexican traveler on a flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong at midday on Thursday is being contacted and will also be quarantined for a week, along with the aircraft’s flight crew.

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7. If you wish to know FAQs about the virus, please go to THIS LINK.