The A/H1N1 flu death toll in the United State has reached 593 with a total of 9,079 hospitalizations, according to the latest statistics released on Friday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

The CDC said that 37 more deaths have been reported in the past week, a jump from the previous record of 556 released a week ago by the agency. Meanwhile, there have been 237 more patients of the new virus admitted to the hospitals in the past week, bringing the total number of the hospitalizations around the country to 9,079, compared with the previous record of 8,842.

The newly-confirmed figures showed that three more patients had died in the past week compared to the previous week, while the number of patients admitted to the hospitals in the past week had decreased 72 percent from the record for the previous week.

On Aug. 28, the CDC confirmed 33 new deaths as well as 859 new hospitalizations of the A/H1N1 flu virus in one week.

Despite the summer heat and humanity, A/H1N1 flu has continued to spread in the country as a whole, with formidable increases of deaths and hospitalizations in a number of states in recent weeks. Alaska and Maine are the two states reporting more cases, while California and Florida are the two states reporting more deaths for the past two months.

On Thursday, California's public health department reported 16 more deaths and 135 hospitalizations of the new virus in the past week, bringing the total death toll to 144 and the total number of hospitalizations to 1,663 in the most populous state of the country.

Since schools and colleges resumed in the past week, federal and state health and educational officials have been worrying about the second waves of the new virus on the campuses across the country. Some 1,640 new cases were reported at 165 universities across the country in the past week, according to results of a survey conducted by the American College Health Association, released on Thursday.

Though there has been only one hospitalization and no fatalities attributed to the virus among the more than 18 million college and university students nationwide, educational authorities are trying to mitigate the new virus spread in universities.

CDC officials and experts are urging people to be well-prepared for the pandemic declared by World Health Organization (WHO) in June. They believe A/H1N1 flu will shape up as a category 2 pandemic similar to the 1957 Asian flu outbreak in fall and winter.

Federal and state officials are preparing for massive A/H1N1 flu immunizations, starting with school children in mid-October.

Worldwide, the WHO says at least 625 people have been reported dead from the A/H1N1 flu virus in the past week, bringing the global death toll to 2,837.

(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2009)