WHO officials declare H1N1 a pandemic

World Health Organization officials said today that the novel H1N1 virus has spread to enough countries to be considered a global pandemic and raised its alert level to phase 6.

Health officials were quick to point out that increasing the alert to phase 6 does not mean that the disease is more lethal. Rather, it means that it has spread to more countries. As of today, the virus had spread to 74 countries. Globally, there were 28,774 confirmed cases and 144 deaths.

Anne Schuchat, MD, from the CDC said that in the United States, there have been more than 13,000 cases, 1,000 people hospitalized and 27 fatalities in connection with this virus. She said that while the number of cases has been decreasing in most regions, certain regions, including New England, New York and New Jersey continue to see cases.

Schuchat said WHO officials raising the alert level should trigger countries that have not seen the sustained person-to-person transmission witnessed in the United States to “dust off their pandemic preparedness plans, and take aggressive steps to prevent spread.” She said that U.S. health officials have been reacting as if this country has been in a pandemic already and the alert level does not change much in terms of their health response.

“This phase 6 level is not going to change our day-to-day activities; we just need to be thinking ahead,” Schuchat said. “We’re not restricting travel to other countries or changing those types of things.”

Discussions about shifting to phase 6 have been under way for a few weeks. Margaret Chan, MD, MPH, director-general of WHO said in a prepared statement that worldwide influenza surveillance efforts influenced the decision to raise the alert level. Health officials in the southern hemisphere, which is just going into its regular influenza season, report that H1N1 appears to be circulating as the dominant influenza strain.

Schuchat said WHO and CDC are working closely with several vaccine manufacturers to develop vaccines, but she cautioned that many steps, including development of antigen and clinical trials, need to take place before a vaccine could end up in mass production. – Colleen Zacharyczuk