WHO Raises Pandemic to Level 5
Although not yet updated on their website’s Pandemic level, Dr. Chan, WHO director-general, raised the level to 5 early today, nearly global pandemic level 6.
“I have decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5,” Chan told a news briefing.
According to the World Health Organization, Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.
As of the time of this writing, nine countries with 148 [total] cases of swine flu infection have been official confirm. 91 of these are from the US with 1 death. Other countries with confirmed swine flu cases include Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Spain and the UK.
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