June 11, 2009
The World Health Organisation (WHO) was poised on Thursday to declare that the new H1N1 virus has caused the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, health sources said on Thursday.
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The move will trigger heightened health measures in the WHO's 193 member states as authorities brace for the worldwide spread of the virus that has so far caused mainly mild illness.
Flu experts advising WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, who convened at 1000 GMT, were expected to recommend moving to the top phase 6 on the WHO's six-point scale, the sources said.
That would reflect the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, was spreading geographically, but not necessarily indicate how virulent it is.
"Phase 6, if we call a phase 6, doesn't mean anything concerning severity, it is concerning geographic spread... Pandemic means global, but it doesn't have any connotation of severity or mildness," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said.
"In fact, what we are seeing with this virus so far is overwhelmingly to date mild disease. So we would think that this event is really a moderate event for the time being, because the numbers are high but the disease is overwhelmingly mild," he told Reuters Television before the talks.
Widespread transmission of the virus in Victoria, Australia, signalling that it is entrenched in another region besides North America, is likely to be the trigger for moving to phase 6.
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Five people have been admitted to intensive care in Australia and over 1,000 cases confirmed following widespread testing in the state. "We have tested 5,500 people in the last two weeks, that is more people than we test in our whole influenza season," said Victorian state premier John Brumby.
One health source, who declined to be named, said the experts were also expected to recommend finishing production currently underway of seasonal flu vaccine for the northern hemisphere next winter. "They might say finish seasonal vaccine and say begin pandemic vaccine as soon as it is feasible," he said.
Drugmakers have obtained the new influenza A (H1N1) seed virus in the past two weeks, enabling them to begin the production process by growing the virus in eggs. Company officials said on Wednesday that they were on track to have a vaccine against the new strain ready for the northern hemisphere autumn.
Seasonal flu each year kills up to half a million people, mainly elderly, and causes severe illness in millions, so a premature switch in vaccine production to cope with the new strain could put many people at risk.
There have been 27,737 infections reported in 74 countries to date, including 141 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally of laboratory confirmed cases, but the real number of people with the disease is likely to run into at least hundreds of thousands, as mild cases may not have been detected.
Confirmed community spread in a second region beyond North America would trigger moving to phase 6—signifying a full-blown pandemic—from the current phase 5 on the WHO's 6-level pandemic alert scale, which indicates one is imminent.
editor: Stephanie Nebehay (Reuters)
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