WHO raises flu alert to phase five

With more cases of swine flu turning up in different countries, and more deaths reported in Mexico, the World Health Organization has raised its flu alert to phase five. Phase five is one step short of a full pandemic. The WHO Director General made the announcement in Geneva and said all countries should now activate their pandemic plans. The move to a higher state of pandemic alert was looking more likely after Spain reported its first case of the virus in a person who has not recently visited Mexico. Authorities there have confirmed 10 cases of the disease and 53 other cases are under investigation. The flu has now travelled to four European countries with confirmed cases turning up in Germany, Austria and three more in Britain.

Presenter: Emma Alberici

Speakers: Margaret Chan, World Health Organization Director General; Sheena Gill, parent; Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister

EMMA ALBERICI: Raising the threat level to 5 means that there is a sustained human-to-human spread of the new H1N1 virus in at least two countries and that people who have not visited Mexico have now fallen ill and passed the virus on.
World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan.

MARGARET CHAN: All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.

Above all, this is an opportunity for global solidarity as we look for responses and solutions that benefit all countries, all of humanity. After all, it really is all of humanity that is under threat.

EMMA ALBERICI: There are now 10 confirmed cases of swine flu in Spain and 53 other cases under investigation there. The Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez issued a statement. She declared that until now, every person who had been affected had recently visited Mexico, except one of them in Catalonia, who she said was the first confirmed case of this type in Spain who'd been indirectly infected.

There are now four countries in Europe where people have tested positive for the virus. As Germany and Austria confirmed their first cases, the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Parliament that three more British people had contracted the illness, taking the total to five.

GORDON BROWN: All of them have travelled recently from Mexico. All of them have mild symptoms. All of them are receiving and responding well to the treatment that has been effective so far; the use of Tamiflu.

EMMA ALBERICI: One of them is a 41-year-old woman from Birmingham and one is a 22-year-old man from London. The other is a 12-year-old girl from Devon who'd flown home from Mexico last week on the same plane as the Scottish honeymooners who were the UK's first swine flu cases.

As soon as the young girl was diagnosed the 230 children at her school in Torbay were sent home. Those in her class were given precautionary doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu. Parents were told the school would be closed for a week.

Sheena Gill is terrified that her daughter may have been infected.

SHEENA GILL: No words can describe it. It's frightening. I'm off to the doctor to obviously get her checked and to see what I can do as a parent.

EMMA ALBERICI: Seventy-eight people in the UK are undergoing tests, suspected of having the illness. The British Government has announced that it's increasing its stockpiles of antiviral drugs to protect 50-million people. France said it's seeking a European Union ban on all flights to Mexico because of the flu.

By radioaustralia





A teacher demonstrates to children how to wash their hands, as a precautionary measure against swine flu infection, at a kindergarten in Huaibei, Anhui province, China.

Photo by Reuters/China Daily