At least 6,071 people worldwide have been killed by the A/H1N1 influenza as infections continue to increase quickly in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a latest update on Friday.

Of all the deaths, 4,399 occurred in the Americas, 661 occurred in South-East Asia and 498 occurred in the West Pacific. The other three WHO regions, Europe, East Mediterranean and Africa reported 300,137 and 76 deaths respectively.

The WHO, which declared the A/H1N1 flu as a pandemic in June, said the total number of lab confirmed cases worldwide is now over482,300, but this case count is significantly lower than the actual number of cases that have occurred because many countries have stopped testing and reporting individual cases.

Intense and persistent influenza transmission continues to be reported in North America without evidence of a peak in activity, the UN agency said.

In Europe and Central and Western Asia, pandemic influenza activity continues to increase across many countries, signaling an unusually early start to the winter influenza season. Intense and increasing influenza activity also continues to be reported in East Asia.

Since the new pandemic H1N1 virus emerged in April, infections in different species of susceptible animals (pig, turkey, ferret, and cat) have been reported, the WHO said.

However, limited evidence suggests that these infections occurred following direct transmission of the virus from infected humans, and these isolated events have had no impact on the dynamics of the pandemic, which is spreading readily via human-to-human transmission.

Unless the epidemiology of the pandemic changes, these will continue to pose no special risks to human health, said the WHO.

(Xinhua News Agency November 7, 2009)