TIMELINE OF A PANDEMIC
October 27th
A woman in the south of the country has become the tenth person to die of swine flu in the State.
October 23rd
US president Barack Obama signs a proclamation declaring 2009 H1N1 swine flu a national emergency.
A teenage in the east becomes the ninth person to die of swine flu in the State. The boy had an underlying health condition, the Department of Health confirmed.
October 22nd
Three more people have died of swine flu in the Republic, it is confirmed by the Department of Health, as rates of influenza infection in the community reach “unprecedented” levels.
October 21st
A significant increase in the numbers of children being hospitalised with swine flu has prompted Dublin’s three children’s hospitals to restrict visiting.
October 19th
Germany's swine flu vaccination programme has been hit by public health concerns over the vaccines being used – one of which has been ordered by the Irish Government. The first batch of swine flu vaccines starts being delivered across the country and the HSE confirms that it could take two weeks before all doctors across the country are supplied with it.
October 15th
Some 1,800 GPs have to date agreed to a request from the Health Service Executive (HSE) to give the swine flu vaccine to patients in at-risk groups.
October 1st
Two more women have died from the swine flu virus in the last week, the Department of Health confirm. The women, from the west and east of the country, both had underlying medical conditions.
September 29th
The European Commission authorises two H1N1 swine flu vaccines for this year, paving the way for mass vaccinations before the start of the flu season.
September 22nd
The first batch of people to receive vaccination against the new H1N1 strain of flu - a group of students in China - have reported no serious side effects, Chinese officials say.
September 4th
H1N1 flu has killed at least 2,837 people but is not causing more severe illness than previously and the virus has not mutated, the WHO says.
August 25th
The H1N1 Pandemic (2009) may infect as much as half of the US population and kill 30,000 to 90,000 people, double the deaths caused by the typical seasonal flu, according to the planning scenario issued by the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
August 24th
US officials should help drug companies speed up supply of vaccines to have at least some available to start vaccinating people by mid-September instead of mid-October as scheduled, White House science advisers say.
August 20th
Chile detects the H1N1 swine flu virus in turkeys, the first time it has been found outside humans and pigs,. Authorities say there is no indication the disease has spread to other parts of Chile.
The WHO says the virus has now spread to some 180 countries, causing at least 1,462 laboratory-confirmed deaths.
August 17th
A second person, a man in his 50s, becomes the second fatality from the virus in the State. Initial reports suggest he had no underlying health condition but it subsequently emerges that he had been treated for heart disease.
August 7th
A young Irish woman with Cystic Fibrosis has become the first fatality from swine flu in Ireland. The woman, who was from the west of Ireland, died in Tallaght hospital.
Globally the death toll from the pandemic stands at 1,154 since the outbreak was identified
August 5th
The WHO moves to dampen speculation that the virus has developed a broad resistance to the Tamiflu medicine that is being used worldwide to treat the condition, Maria Teresa Cerqueira, chief of the US-Mexico border office for the WHO, says there is no evidence of viral resistance near the US-Mexico border and that she had no information about drug-evading cases of the new H1N1 flu strain.
July 31st
A 30-year-old part-time British soldier from Northern Ireland dies from swine flu. Lee Porter from Coleraine, Co Derry, contracted the illness while on training operations with the Royal Artillery in Surrey in England. He died in hospital in Surrey two weeks after taking ill.
July 30th
The number of cases triples in the space of a week according to figures from the HSE. The incidence of swine flu was 37 for 100,000, the equivalent of more than 1,600 cases nationally.
July 24th
The flu spreads spread to some 160 countries and the death toll tops 800.
July 18th
Swine flu cases in UK now estimated at 100,000
July 14th
A quarter of the Irish population could become infected with swine flu, the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive (HSE) says. In a letter to GPs and other health professionals urging assistance with the pandemic, the department and the HSE said that even though most cases would be mild, "an infection rate in our population of 25 per cent . . . will generate sufficient morbidity to place significant strain on family doctors, hospitals, ventilation equipment and intensive care facilities".
July 9th
The Department of Health says it will no longer try to contain the spread of the illness in the Republic and will instead try to mitigate its effects. The move mirrors a change in strategy announced in the UK where authorities are no longer trying to trace contacts of those who test positive for Swine Flu, or to offer contacts antivirals such as Tamiflu, because the virus is spreading so rapidly. The total number of cases of influenza A (H1N1) reported here to date has climbed to 104.
July 4th
It is confirmed that 7.7 million doses of the swine flu vaccine will be made available across the country starting in the autumn. The Department of Health's chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan says treatments should be available for distribution after the summer.
July 3rd
WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan and health ministers from around the globe meet in Cancun for a two-day summit to design strategies for battling the pandemic. "As we see today, with well over 100 countries reporting cases, once a fully fit pandemic virus emerges, its further international spread is unstoppable," Ms Chan says.
June 29th
The first swine flu patient to show resistance to the anti-viral drug Tamiflu is identified in Denmark.
June 14th
The UK's first death from swine flu is confirmed tonight after a patient died in hospital in Scotland. The patient had underlying health conditions.
June 11th
The WHO raises its pandemic flu alert to phase six on a six-point scalebecause of growing human to human transmission of the virus. It says there have been 28,774 infections reported in 74 countries resulting in 144 deaths. However, the number of undetected cases of the virus is likely to run into hundreds of thousands.
Minister for Health Mary Harney is "satisfied" the health service is capable of dealing with H1N1 swine flu.
May 26th
Number of confirmed swine flu cases in Ireland stands at three. Almost 13,000 cases of the new flu strain have been confirmed in 50 countries with 80 deaths in Mexico, 10 deaths in the US, one in Canada and one in Costa Rica.
May 15th
WHO puts the number of cases worldwide at 6600.
May 14th
Health authorities in Northern Ireland say they are tracking down some 150 passengers who boarded a flight from Gatwick to Belfast with a man now diagnosed with swine flu.
May 7th
More than 2,000 people in 23 countries worldwide have now been infected with H1N1, the WHO says.
May 2nd
The Department of Health and Children confirms the first case of swine flu in the State, in a man from the east of the country who had recently returned from a trip to Mexico.
May 1st
The first two cases in Europe of human-to-human transmission of the virus in the community are confirmed. The infections, reported in Britain and Germany, were picked up by individuals who had never been to Mexico or other affected regions.
April 30th
The WHO, bowing to pressure from meat industry producers and concerned governments, says it will refer to the new virus strain as influenza A (H1N1) not swine flu. The name doesn't really catch on.
Mexico orders the shutdown of all non-essential public services as it tried to fight the spread of swine flu.
April 29th
The World Health Organisation raises the pandemic threat level from to phase 5 as the virus continues to spread. A toddler in Texas becomes the first person outside Mexico to die from the illness.
April 28th
Mexico City shuts restaurants, bars, cinemas, stadiums and some government offices to stop the infection from spreading. New cases reported in New Zealand and Israel.
April 27th
Spain becomes the first country in Europe to confirm a case of swine flu in a man recently returned from a trip to Mexico. Hours later health officials in Scotland confirm that two people test positive for the virus.
The World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert level to phase 4 over the virus, indicating that the infection can spread between humans to cause community-level outbreaks.
The US and the EU urge people to reconsider trips to Mexico.
April 26th
Janet Napolitano, US homeland security secretary, declares a "public health emergency" in the US as about 20 people are confirmed to have been infected, though none are seriously ill.
The World Health Organisation declared "a public health emergency of international concern".
April 25th
Outbreaks in Mexico and the United States have the potential to cause a worldwide pandemic but it is too early to say whether they will, the head of the World Health Organisation says
At home the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health issue joint warning over the outbreak
April 24th
The US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) announces that a "strange new strain of flu" that may have killed as many as 60 people in Mexico has sickened eight people in the United States. Dr Richard Besser of CDC is quoted as saying: "We do not have enough info to fully assess the health threat posed by this new swine flu virus."
