GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the first flu pandemic of the 21st century yesterday, urging countries to shore up defenses against the virus which is “not stoppable” but has proved mainly mild so far.
Coinciding with the WHO announcement, Saudi Arabia said a three-year-old Saudi infant has tested positive for the H1N1 virus. Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah said the toddler entered the country through King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh with his parents on Sunday. “At the time of his arrival from the United States, the boy did not show any symptoms of the disease. He was taken to the Armed Forces Hospital in Riyadh on Wednesday for tests when he developed the symptoms,” said the minister in a statement.
This is the third swine flu case reported in the Kingdom. The first was a Filipino nurse who works at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh while the second was a Saudi student returning from the US.
The WHO raised its pandemic flu alert to Phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.
“No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely, in real time, right at the very beginning,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said.
Acting on the recommendation of flu experts, the WHO reiterated its advice to its 193 member countries not to close borders or impose travel restrictions to halt the movement of people, goods and services, a call echoed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The move to Phase 6 reflects the fact that the disease, widely known as swine flu, was spreading geographically, but does not indicate how virulent it is.
Widespread transmission of the virus in Victoria, Australia, signaling that it is entrenched in another region besides North America, was one of the key triggers for moving to Phase 6.
A unanimous experts’ decision was based on an overall assessment in the eight most heavily hit countries — Australia, Britain, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Spain and the United States — that the virus is spreading in a sustained way in communities, according to Chan.
“Collectively, looking at that, we are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and it is not stoppable,” she said.
“Moving to pandemic Phase 6 level does not imply we will see an increase in the number of deaths or very severe cases. Quite the contrary, many people are having mild disease, they recover without medicines in some cases and it is good news,” Chan said.
And measuring the impact of the disease as it develops and spreads is difficult. “It is very hard to get a sense of how many people are really dying from something like pandemic flu,” acting Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda, the WHO’s top flu expert, said.
Chan said the WHO global assessment of the pandemic was that it was moderate, but at the national level the picture could be different.
“Although the pandemic appears to have moderate severity in comparatively well-off countries, it is prudent to anticipate a bleaker picture as the virus spreads to areas with limited resources, poor health care, and a high prevalence of underlying medical problems,” Chan said.
The WHO recommended drugmakers stay on track to complete production of seasonal influenza vaccine for the northern hemisphere’s next winter in the next two weeks. Each year, normal flu kills up to 500,000 people and infects millions.
Chan said the Geneva-based agency would work with regulatory authorities to help fast-track approval of new pandemic vaccines that are safe and effective so that they can be made available as soon as possible. In any case, the first doses would only be available in September, she added.
