The U.S. Senate moved up a confirmation hearing for President Barack Obama’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration as the Swine Flu epidemic advances, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on whether to confirm Margaret Hamburg as FDA commissioner will be held May 7 instead of May 12. Hamburg is a public health veteran with expertise in bioterrorism and pandemics.
That will come in handy should she be confirmed, as the Centers for Disease Control says the number of confirmed cases of Swine Flu (also called the A/H1N1 flu) in the U.S. rose 286 in 36 states, compared with 226 cases in 30 states just yesterday.
Worldwide, 1,025 confirmed cases and 26 have been reported to the World Health Organization, according to the Journal‘s Health Blog.
Hundreds more deaths have been reported but not confirmed by CDC or WHO; in Mexico alone, thought to be Ground Zero for the outbreak, the flu killed 22 people and infected 568, according to Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova.
