Second wave may rise cases

PANAMA. A second wave of A/H1N1 influenza could increase the number of infected cases in the country, Health Minister Franklin Vergara has said.

"One of the world's concerns is not only that the flu will reappear, for we are now in the second wave, but that the virus will change and mute to become more aggressive or resistant to medicine," Vergara told an international symposium.

The second wave of the virus hit in the first days of July when infections and deaths increased, Vergara said at the symposium, attended by officials, experts and military officers from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, the US, Panama and Chile.

There now have been a total of seven confirmed deaths caused by the influenza A virus in Panama.