The confirmed cases of the new A/H1N1 influenza have risen to 2,254 with 104 people hospitalized, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Saturday.

The cases were confirmed in 44 of the country's 50 states and the District of Columbia and the deaths remain at two. The case count was 1639 in 43 states on Friday.

The increase in the number of confirmed cases showed that the ongoing outbreak of the novel influenza continues to expand in the United States. CDC expects that more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths from this outbreak will occur over the coming days and weeks.

"Today there are almost 3,000 probable and confirmed cases herein the United States," Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC's interim deputy director for science and public health, told reporters at a news briefing on Saturday.

"I know that in every state, it's really easy to focus on the numbers, but I think right now, the numbers don't tell us as much as the trends," she said. "Our assessment is that transmission here in the US is ongoing, that this is a very transmissible virus, similar to the seasonal influenza viruses," she added.

The CDC official, however, downplayed the severity of the illness and said: "The good news is we are not seeing a rise above the epidemic threshold in that system."

"Fortunately, the severity of illness that we are seeing at this point doesn't look as terrible as a category five kind of pandemic or the severity of impact that some had feared," the official said.

In a statement posted on its website, the CDC said it continues to take aggressive action to respond to the expanding outbreak.

The response goals, the CDC said, are to reduce spread and illness severity, and provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by this emergency.