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WHO to consider severity of flu before declaring pandemic
Last Updated: Friday, May 22, 2009 | 12:54 PM ET Comments14Recommend8CBC News
The World Health Organization is changing its criteria to be met before a declaring a pandemic of swine flu.
"What we are looking for and what we will be looking for is something, events, which signify a really substantial increase in risk of harm to people," Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting assistant director general, told a news conference in Geneva on Friday.
Until now, the UN health agency's six-point scale only considered the way a virus is spreading, but not its severity.
WHO will now look for signs that "the risks for people have significantly gone up" Fukuda said, before moving the alert up from its current Phase 5 level, meaning a pandemic is "imminent."
Many of the WHO's 193 member states had urged its director general Dr. Margaret Chan to reconsider the agency's criteria for declaring a pandemic to avoid unnecessary panic and economic disruption.
Earlier on Friday, Chan said the H1N1 swine flu virus is likely to keep spreading to new parts of the world and within countries that already have cases.
"This is a subtle, sneaky virus," Chan said at the close of the agency's annual meeting in Geneva.
"It does not announce its presence or arrival in a new country with a sudden explosion of patients seeking medical care or requiring hospitalization," she said in urging countries to be ready for more serious infections and deaths.
Chan noted that phases 5 and 6 of a pandemic are "virtually identical in terms of the actions they launch" in terms of preparedness.
The new strain has infected more than 11,000 people in 42 countries, and killed 86 of them, according to WHO.
WHO to consider severity of flu before declaring pandemic
Last Updated: Friday, May 22, 2009 | 12:54 PM ET Comments14Recommend8CBC News
The World Health Organization is changing its criteria to be met before a declaring a pandemic of swine flu.
"What we are looking for and what we will be looking for is something, events, which signify a really substantial increase in risk of harm to people," Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting assistant director general, told a news conference in Geneva on Friday.
Until now, the UN health agency's six-point scale only considered the way a virus is spreading, but not its severity.
WHO will now look for signs that "the risks for people have significantly gone up" Fukuda said, before moving the alert up from its current Phase 5 level, meaning a pandemic is "imminent."
Many of the WHO's 193 member states had urged its director general Dr. Margaret Chan to reconsider the agency's criteria for declaring a pandemic to avoid unnecessary panic and economic disruption.
Earlier on Friday, Chan said the H1N1 swine flu virus is likely to keep spreading to new parts of the world and within countries that already have cases.
"This is a subtle, sneaky virus," Chan said at the close of the agency's annual meeting in Geneva.
"It does not announce its presence or arrival in a new country with a sudden explosion of patients seeking medical care or requiring hospitalization," she said in urging countries to be ready for more serious infections and deaths.
Chan noted that phases 5 and 6 of a pandemic are "virtually identical in terms of the actions they launch" in terms of preparedness.
The new strain has infected more than 11,000 people in 42 countries, and killed 86 of them, according to WHO.