MANILA, 10 July 2009, 1600 hrs - The summer holidays have been brought forward for 43 secondary schools in Hong Kong (China) in an effort to curtail the spread of Pandemic H1N1 2009, health authorities said, as 57 new infections were detected in the territory. The Department of Health called on parents to pay attention to the health of their children, and to ensure they practiced good personal hygiene.

On 9 July, New Zealand announced its sixth death linked to Pandemic H1N1, that of a woman with underlying health conditions. The number of reported cases in New Zealand now exceed 1 500.

"The deaths announced over the past few days show how quickly complications can arise in those with known risk factors and the need to monitor people's conditions very closely," said the New Zealand Ministry of Health's Dr Sandy Dawson.

Australia remains the country with the most cases in the Region, nearly 8000. There are 111 people in hospital with Pandemic H1N1 around Australia, 51 of them in the state of Victoria

Japan identified 100 new cases and has now reported infections in all but one of its 47 prefectures. Macao (China) and Lao PDR also reported new confirmed cases.

The total number of laboratory confirmed cases in the Western Pacific Region stood at 17 627, as of 10 July, with 21 deaths (in brackets besides the case numbers below) linked to the virus. The actual number of infections is likely to be much higher, as a number of countries are now into a mitigation phase of their response to the disease and are no longer testing all suspected cases. Also, some countries are not reporting on a daily basis.

- Australia 7933 (13)

- Brunei Darussalam 164 (1)

- Cambodia 8

- China 1097

- Hong Kong (China) 1112

- Macao (China) 73

- Taiwan (China) 61

- Cook Islands 1

- Fiji 19

- Japan 2126

- Lao PDR 6

- Malaysia 112

- New Zealand 1555 (6)

- Palau 1

- Papua New Guinea 1

- Philippines 1709 (1)

- Republic of Korea 286

- Samoa 1

- Singapore 1111

- Vanuatu 3

- Viet Nam 248