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The World Health Organisation (WHO) logo is seen at its headquarters in Geneva - Source: Reuters -
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The World Health Organisation has called an emergency meeting of
experts to discuss the spreading H1N1 flu outbreak, in a sign the
UN agency may be poised to declare a pandemic.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who consulted health officials
in affected countries, was drawing up her own evaluation ahead of
the meeting set to begin at midday local time, a spokesman
said.
"She is looking for some detailed epidemiological explanation for
what is going on," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said.
"She is making her own assessment based on information gathered
today and running it by the Emergency Committee tomorrow."
Thompson declined to say whether the WHO would declare a full-blown
pandemic after the closed-door talks, saying he did not want to
prejudge the experts' recommendations.
Chan had sought further information from some countries to clarify
news reports that they were detecting sustained transmission of the
new virus in the community, and not just imported cases, he
said.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the expert committee would consult
"on the state of the outbreak". The strain, which emerged in April
in Mexico and the United States, has spread widely in places
including Australia, Britain, Chile and Japan.
The agency said on Tuesday it was on the verge of declaring the
first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, but wanted to
ensure countries were well prepared to prevent a panic over the
disease, widely known as swine flu.
Chan, a former health director in Hong Kong, has previously
consulted the group of international experts before raising the
alert level.
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.
Geographic spread
There have been 27,737 cases reported in 74 countries to date,
including 141 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally.
Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general, told reporters
late on Tuesday that a move to phase 6 would reflect the geographic
spread of the new disease.
"It does not mean that the severity of the situation has increased
or that people are getting seriously sick at higher numbers or
higher rates than they are right now," he said.
"One of the critical issues is that we do not want people to
'over-panic' if they hear that we are in a pandemic situation,"
Fukuda told reporters at the time.
The WHO wants to avoid causing undue alarm over a virus that has
been largely mild in most countries, while warning it could still
mutate into a more virulent form.
Members such as Britain have called on the WHO to revise its scale
to reflect severity in future.
The WHO and its 193 member states were working hard to prepare for
a pandemic, for instance developing vaccines and building up
supplies of anti-viral drugs, Fukuda said.
Drug makers are on track to have a vaccine against the new strain
ready for the northern hemisphere autumn after receiving seed virus
samples, company officials said.
