WHO declares first 21st century flu pandemic

WHO declares flu pandemic
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By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century on Thursday, urging countries to shore up defenses against the virus which is "not stoppable" but has proved mainly mild so far.
The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.
"No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely, in real time, right at the very beginning," WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said. "The world can now reap the benefits of investments, over the last five years, in pandemic preparedness."
Acting on the recommendation of flu experts, the WHO reiterated its advice to its 193 member countries not to close borders or impose travel restrictions to halt the movement of people, goods and services, a call echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The move to phase 6 reflects the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, was spreading geographically, but does not indicate how virulent it is.
Widespread transmission of the virus in Victoria, Australia, signaling that it is entrenched in another region besides North America, was one of the key triggers for moving to phase 6.
NO SURPRISE
"This is not a surprise," Dr Thomas Frieden, new director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a news conference. "It is expected based on the data."
A unanimous experts' decision was based on an overall assessment in the eight most heavily hit countries -- Australia, Britain, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Spain and the United States -- that the virus is spreading in a sustained way in communities, according to Chan.
"Collectively, looking at that, we are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and it is not stoppable," she said.
"Moving to pandemic phase six level does not imply we will see an increase in the number of deaths or very severe cases.
"Quite on the contrary. Many people are having mild disease, they recover without medicines in some cases and it is good news," she said.
And measuring the impact of the disease as it develops and spreads is difficult.
"It is very hard to get a sense of how many people are really dying from something like pandemic flu," acting Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's top flu expert, said.
Chan said the WHO global assessment of the pandemic was that it was moderate, but at the national level the picture could be different. Continued...
Source: Reuters