By Laura
MacInnis
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization
is keeping a close eye on the spread of the H1N1
virus outside North America as it tries to decide
whether to declare a pandemic, a top official said
on Monday.
Keiji Fukuda, WHO acting assistant
director-general, said most of the people infected
in Europe and Asia to date had been to Mexico, the
outbreak epicenter, and had not caught the virus
from the community-at-large.
It remains unclear when, or whether, the United
Nations agency will raise its pandemic alert to the
top of its 6-point scale and activate emergency
response plans to fight the virus known popularly as
"swine
flu."
"We continue to see a number of infections
related to travel in a number of different
countries," Fukuda told journalists in Geneva,
where the WHO is headquartered.
"We are not certain when we will go to Phase
6." He stressed a designation of a full
pandemic would not mean the WHO expected widespread
death or severe illness from the strain.
The main concern, he said, is whether the disease
takes hold in countries around the world and could
emerge in a mutated or more dangerous form with
time.
Its spread to countries in the southern
hemisphere, like New Zealand, that are entering the
winter season when flu tends to be most acute is a
particular worry, according to Fukuda.
He emphasized that although Mexican authorities
have said the flu outbreak there has passed its
peak, the world should not drop its guard and stop
monitoring the new disease.
"It is not that surveillance has to be
strong just in the southern hemisphere. It has to be
strong everywhere. Right now we really just don't
know how this will go," Fukuda said.
RAISED LEVEL
The WHO has confirmed 1,025 infections, including
26 deaths, in 20 countries around the world. Many
people have experienced only mild symptoms from the
flu and recovered fully without medicines.
Earlier on Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
said that WHO chief Margaret Chan had told him
"that if the situation remains as it is, WHO
has no plan to raise the alert level to 6 at this
moment."
Last week the WHO raised its pandemic alert level
from 3 to 4 to 5 in recognition of the transmission
of the virus in Mexico and among communities in the
United States and Canada. Phase 5 signals that a
pandemic is "imminent."
Asked about the reported spread of H1N1
from a farm worker to a herd of swine in western
Canada, Fukuda warned against putting too much
emphasis on the animal outbreak. He said
human-to-human spread of the virus remained the
bigger concern.
"Influenza is a virus that commonly infects
pigs," he said. "I don't know of any
further outbreaks occurring in pigs at this
time." Continued...
Mexicans
defy swine flu advice
