World health officials tried to quell growing fears over swine flu on Thursday, as governments braced for a global pandemic and the United States set up a lab in Mexico to help diagnose and test cases. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
GENEVA - THE World Health Organisation said on Thursday there was no reason to raise a pandemic flu alert to the highest level as the epidemic remained steady.
New tests to speed up detection
WASHINGTON - NEW tests are being shipped to US states that should speed up efforts to screen for the new flu virus that threatens to start a pandemic, health officials said on Thursday.
And a lab with the new test has been set up in Mexico in the hope of finding out how many of the 2,500 suspected cases are in fact the new strain of H1N1 swine flu.
But WHO acting Assistant Director General Keiji Fukuda added a note of caution about developments in the southern hemisphere, which is entering into the flu-prone winter season.
The WHO had raised the global pandemic alert level from phase four to five on Wednesday, signalling that a pandemic was 'imminent.' 'Today that assessment holds steady and we do not have any evidence that we should move to phase six today or that any such move is imminent right now,' said Mr Fukuda.
Phase six would signal that the world is in a pandemic.
However, Mr Fukuda pointed out that the swine flu virus had been behaving like a typical influenza virus. As such, it could have a bigger impact on countries that are heading into winter.
Mexico, which is at the heart of the A/H1N1 swine flu outbreak, the United States and other northern hemisphere countries where cases have been reported mainly in travellers, are currently in springtime and the traditional flu season is on the wane.
'It's possible we will see outbreaks of the H1N1 virus occurring more recently in the southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere,' he said in a global telephone news conference. 'This is something we have to be on the watch out very carefully for.'
Overall, Mr Fukuda reported a multiplication of confirmed cases in Mexico to 97, while the number of confirmed deaths stayed steady at seven. But while the case load 'continued' in Mexico, the situation was largely stable, he added.
'The jump in numbers being reported by Mexico probably represents a lot of work being down right now to go through the backlog of specimens collected from people with different symptoms,' Mr Fukuda said.
'We have also seen in other countries cases holding steady, for example the United States,' Mr Fukuda said in a global telephone news conference. 'There is nothing which suggests epidemiologically today that we should be moving towards phase six.' -- AFP
