A total of 1,367 Filipinos who came down with the swine flu since its outbreak last April, have already recovered from the new strain of influenza virus, health officials said Saturday.

The health experts from the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) and Department of Health (DoH), however, noted that the wave of the global pandemic of influenza A(H1N1) is far from over in the Philippines following the death of one patient last week.

This developed as the Philippines now ranks Number 8 worldwide in terms of confirmed flu cases, overtaking Argentina and Japan, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.

WHO, in its latest pandemic update issued last July 3, showed the Philippines with a total of 1,709 confirmed cases, surpassing Japan’s 1,446 cases (260 lower than the Philippines), and Argentina’s 1,587 cases (119 cases lower).

Jaime Montoya, director of DoST's Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD), said that 86 percent of 1,709 persons that got infected with influenza A(H1N1) have been cleared of the virus.

Citing the latest Philippine data as of July 1, the PCHRD director noted that a total of 1,367 of 1,709 affected persons survived the novel influenza virus even as DoH reported 848 new cases in the country this week.

"For as long as they are suffering from the symptoms of swine flu, they are considered infectious. Right now, most of them have recovered," Montoya said in a lecture at the historic landmark Manila Hotel last week. Lyndon Lee Suy, head of DoH's

Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases Project, said that the swine flu pandemic, which is still maintained at Level 6 even though its severity was considered as moderate, was only hyped up in the country.

"Where we are right now, they (other countries with swine flu deaths) already have been before,” Suy said.

Even though majority of Filipinos afflicted have recovered from swine flu, Montoya clarified that the virus will never disappear in the country nor will it go down to zero, saying that the possible mutation of its strains will lead to infection incidents in the future.

"What we are experiencing right now is only table top. We are expecting more cases to come out that we can never contain. It will never disappear in the country and will never go down to zero," Montoya said.

"It will just plateau as it will be replaced by other mutating H1N1 strains," he said.

However, Montoya and Suy assured that long-term immunity to swine flu looms as scientists around the world expect the formulation of an anti-A(H1N1) virus vaccine before the year ends.

DoH experts led by Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III have been encouraging people suffering from swine flu to take anti-viral treatments such as 75 mg. of Oseltamivir and Zanamivir twice a day for 10 days. The P150 tablet reduces the symptoms and duration of the illness, they said.

The health department also encouraged the wearing of masks and the habitual washing of hands to prevent possible infection to the new virus whenever in public places.

People with suspected symptoms of the virus such as cough, fever, sore throat, body pain, headaches, gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea have been encouraged to do self-quarantine for seven days.

Health experts said patients having difficulty in breathing, chest pain, coughing up colored sputum, altered level of consciousness and confusion must immediately be admitted to hospital with isolation rooms.

A(H1N1) virus has already killed 332 people out of more than 77,200 infected persons around the world in just a span of two months.