With 27,000 cases, swine flu is officially a pandemic
World Health Organisation raises alert status to highest level as infection spreads
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The WHO's director general, Margaret Chan, with her deputy Keiji Fukuda, in Geneva yesterday, warns that the real number of cases is likely to be higher
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The World Health Organisation yesterday declared a global flu pandemic – the first in more than 40 years – as swine flu spread to 74 countries causing more than 27,000 confirmed cases and 141 deaths.
After intense discussions between WHO officials and the health ministries of the worst-affected countries, the organisation decided to raise its pandemic alert status from phase five to phase six – the highest level – which confirmed that a pandemic is under way.
The decision was taken after evidence emerged that the virus belonging to the H1N1 influenza A family was spreading freely as community-wide infections in several countries within at least two WHO regions of the world.
In addition to spreading widely in Mexico and North America, the virus has also spread extensively in Spain and Britain, as well as Chile and Australia, which saw a four-fold increase in confirmed cases in a single week.
The WHO emphasised that its announcement did not mean that the virus was more dangerous than previously thought or that it was more likely to mutate into a more lethal form, only that it had the capability of spreading easily within many different countries.
However, the WHO's director general, Margaret Chan, warned that influenza viruses were notoriously unpredictable and that the relatively mild symptoms experienced by many people infected with swine flu could turn more severe as the virus changed its genetic make-up. She said further spread was inevitable.
Dr Chan said that the nearly 30,000 confirmed cases were likely to be a small part of the real number because effective influenza surveillance in many countries was not being carried out.
The strain of H1N1 influenza A that first appeared in Mexico in April is "pretty stable" at present but like all flu viruses it could change "without rhyme or reason" from a mild to a severe form, Dr Chan said. "We have to brace ourselves for more deaths," she said.
The WHO is negotiating with manufacturers to develop and produce vaccines. It is not recommending restrictions on travel or the closure of borders as a result of declaring a pandemic, Dr Chan said.
The Department of Health said that the announcement had no immediate implications for the British public, but it could result in the Government taking further preventative measures, such as imposing travel bans and ordering an increase in the production of flu vaccines. The NHS will check that emergency plans are in place and tested.
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Comments
Why has swine flu been declared a pandemic and TB has not?
The answer to that is simple. There is more money, more corporate profit to be made out of swine flu. Perhaps it's aptly-named.
TB is more prevalent, kills more people, but it kills poor people, and often coloured people (the highest incidence of TB is in India).
And if you want to see at an epidemic, look at the epidemic of TB in Britain's prisons.
Do we vaccinate prisoners against TB? Do we offer them vaccinations? Do we even screen prisoners for TB, the way we screen them for drugs?
You know the answers. You know why.
Sounds familiar, if you are useless at your job you get promoted to a level way beyond your own competence. Get rid of her, and not back to HK
Hasn't stopped newspapers cranking up the fear factor has it? Neither prevented our own health experts warning of a damaging'flu outbreak this coming winter. Of course if there is a 'flu epidemic and it is plain ordinary 'flu I doubt that will stop the press going hysterical, as every case will be labelled pig 'flu until proved otherwise.
Psychologists say that humans are extremely bad at judging risk (except those in the insurance business), they panic at the thought of the unkown.
I would say the more comfortable life has become the more insulated we are from the harsh realities under which the majority of the world live, the more hysterical we've become.
Imagine the press reaction if the motor car had just been invented. They would have campaigned to have it banned and ministers would have followed suit arguing it was both a danger to the planet and a killing machine. Those fumes! Those trillions spent on roads! The extra burden on hospitals! All for what, so you can get from A to B quicker? And they would solemnly say the horse shit removers union would object as thousands of job losses.
Come to think of it there are a lot of people who would agree.
But then imagining a world in which the motor car never existed is about as unreal as thinking you can eliminate danger and risk as the WHO thinks you can.