These days, it seems like if you're not researching swine flu, something's wrong with your lab. BBC reports that the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in the UK has gotten the first "full genetic fingerprint of the virus that has infected Europeans." Meanwhile, Gerry Ward at Genome Alberta blogs about Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory, which announced that it completed a full genome sequence of the virus. "Apparently the staff has been working 24/7 since samples arrived on April 22 from the outbreak that began on April 18, 2009," he writes.
Bloggers at Effect Measure discuss a series of papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine relating to H1N1. "What I find remarkable is the speed the problem was recognized -- literally days. Identification of the virus was first made in the CDC laboratory on April 15, just 3 weeks ago. Now we are already reading scientific papers providing a wealth of detail," according to the post.
According to the New York Times today, the latest count from the World Health Organization is 2,371 confirmed cases of swine flu in 24 countries. "Only 46 people are known to have died of the virus, all but 2 of them in Mexico," the article says.