In case you haven’t heard or read the news, U.S. health officials declared a national public health emergency regarding Swine flu yesterday. This action was taken because of the discovery of 20 people with documented Swine flu infection in the United States; these cases were found in the following states: New York, California,Kansas, Ohio, and Texas. All twenty of the patients recovered. Suspected cases have been recently found in Mexico,where 1600 cases were reported, with 100 deaths. Six cases have been found in Canada. Infection with the swine flu virus is known to spread from person to person.

What does the declaration of a national public health emergency mean for you and yours? Should you panic? No. Right now, whether this virus causes mostly mild or serious infections is not known for sure. Although there is a fear that infection with this virus will lead to an epidemic globally, the good news is that it is still early for this possibility. By declaring a national health emergency, health officials are raising awareness of this infection and its potential to spread quickly, which will hopefully lead to proper actions by all of us (see below for more on this), and thus, is a step in the prevention of its spread.  

For everything you need to know about this, go to the page that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has set up; especially read the section on the steps you can take to avoid, or lessen your risk of, becoming infected with this virus. 

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/