The H1N1 swine flu outbreak continues to subside in the United States, with just four states now reporting widespread cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
That's a decline from seven states reporting widespread cases last week, and a continuance of a decline in prevalence since H1N1 infections peaked in late October, with 48 states reporting widespread illness at the time.
The four states still reporting high H1N1 activity are Delaware, Maine, New Jersey and Virginia, the CDC said.
The agency notes that visits to physicians for flu-like illness did rise slightly over the past week, the first such rise after eight consecutive weeks of decline. Rates of hospitalization for influenza remained unchanged, although the CDC says the number of deaths linked to pneumonia and influenza did rise.