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The World Health Organization, headed by Director-General Margaret Chan, is holding an emergency meeting with its member states today on the spread of the novel H1N1 Swine Flu virus.
WHO to hold emergency flu meeting
Reuters June 5, 2009 7:01 AM
GENEVA - World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan is holding an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the severity of H1N1 flu outbreaks, but no decision is expected on moving to the top level of pandemic alert, a WHO spokeswoman said.
"The agenda is not to decide on phase 6, I would like to stress this," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a news briefing in Geneva. The teleconference is set to begin at 1200 GMT and last about an hour, she added.
"There is no timetable for WHO to go into phase 6, as you know we need to see community transmission in another WHO region and secondly to assess the severity," she said.
The experts will discuss new findings about the virus as well as international public health measures, Chaib said.
According to today’s WHO Update 69 countries have officially reported 21,940 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection, including 125 deaths.
While the criteria for declaring a Pandemic Phase 6 is subject to change, right now it is defined as `community spread of a novel virus in 2 or more WHO regions’.
Community spread has been documented in the Americas (red), but according to the WHO, not in any other region.
This failure to document community spread in another region appears to be due more to the reluctance, or perhaps the inability, of many countries to test for the virus than any other factor.
Reputable scientists, such as John Oxford, have stated that the real numbers in Europe are many times higher than are being reported.
And with reports such as this one, coming out of Australia today, it becomes more difficult to ignore the rapid spread of this virus.
Australian Swine Flu Count Breaks 1,000 as Victoria Cases Surge
By Ed Johnson
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- The number of confirmed swine flu cases in Australia rose to more than 1,000 today, as federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the government expects the virus to spread across the country.
Victoria, the worst-hit state, confirmed a further 122 cases overnight, taking its tally to 874, its health department said. Authorities believe H1N1 influenza will advance “in all jurisdictions,” Roxon told reporters earlier in Canberra.
The decision to go to Phase 6 is a political hot potato, and the WHO is caught between their existing criteria and the wishes of their member states who fear a serious economic impact to such a declaration.
For Americans, I doubt that it really matters whether the WHO declares a full pandemic. The CDC is quite capable of doing whatever is necessary without the WHO’s blessing.
I’ve no doubt that they will act aggressively, regardless of the world’s pandemic level.
What is more at stake here are the lives and wellbeing of people in developing countries who’s governments may be slow to act without a full pandemic declaration.
Developing countries may also find it more difficult to obtain financial assistance, vaccines, antivirals, or other forms of emergency pandemic aid from wealthier nations as long as no pandemic has been officially declared.
The competing interests around the world will make any decision by the WHO on raising the alert level very difficult, and no matter what is decided, it will likely be roundly criticized.
