WHO raises flu pandemic to highest level

What is phase 6?

Updated 11 June 2009
What is phase 6?

Phase 6 is a pandemic, according to the WHO definition.
WHO pandemic phase descriptions

Pandemic influenza preparedness and response
What about severity?

At this time, WHO considers the overall severity of the influenza pandemic to be moderate. This assessment is based on scientific evidence available to WHO, as well as input from its Member States on the pandemic's impact on their health systems, and their social and economic functioning.

The moderate assessment reflects that:

* Most people recover from infection without the need for hospitalization or medical care.
* Overall, national levels of severe illness from influenza A(H1N1) appear similar to levels seen during local seasonal influenza periods, although high levels of disease have occurred in some local areas and institutions.
* Overall, hospitals and health care systems in most countries have been able to cope with the numbers of people seeking care, although some facilities and systems have been stressed in some localities.

WHO is concerned about current patterns of serious cases and deaths that are occurring primarily among young persons, including the previously healthy and those with pre-existing medical conditions or pregnancy.

Large outbreaks of disease have not yet been reported in many countries, and the full clinical spectrum of disease is not yet known.
Assessing the severity of an influenza pandemic

Considerations for assessing the severity
Does WHO expect the severity of the pandemic to change over time?

The severity of pandemics can change over time and differ by location or population.

Close monitoring of the disease and timely and regular sharing of information between WHO and its Member States during the pandemic period is essential for evaluating future severity assessments, if needed.

Future severity assessments would reflect one or a combination of the following factors:

* changes in the virus,
* underlying vulnerabilities, or
* limitations in health system capacities.

The pandemic is early in its evolution and many countries have not yet been substantially affected.
More about the new influenza A(H1N1)
What is WHO doing to respond?

WHO continues to help all countries respond to the situation. The world cannot let down its guard and WHO must help the world remain and become better prepared.

WHO's support to countries takes three main forms: technical guidance, materials support, and training of health care system personnel.

WHO's primary concern is to strengthen and support health systems in countries with less resources. Health systems need to be able to prevent, detect, treat and mitigate cases of illness associated with this virus.

WHO is also working to make stocks of medicines (such as antivirals and antibiotics) and an eventual pandemic vaccine more accessible and affordable to developing countries.

Both antivirals and vaccines have important roles in treatment and prevention respectively. However, existing stocks of antivirals are unlikely to meet the demand. And vaccines may be developed, but it will some months.

Therefore, rational use of the limited resources will be essential. And medicines are only part of the response. WHO is also deploying diagnostic kits, medicines and masks and gloves for health care settings, teams of scientific experts, and medical technicians so countries in need can respond to local epidemics.

A pandemic sets national authorities in motion to implement preparedness plans, identify cases as efficiently as possible, and minimize serious illness and deaths with proper treatment.

The goal is to reduce the impact of the pandemic on society.
Guidance for national authorities
What do I do now? What actions should I look for in my community?

Stay informed. Go to reliable sources of information, including your Ministry of Health, to learn what you can do to protect yourself and stay updated as the pandemic evolves. Community-specific information is available from local or national health authorities.

You can also continue to visit the WHO web site for simple prevention practices and general advice.

WHO is not recommending travel restrictions nor does WHO have evidence of risk from eating cooked pork.
What can I do?

...
Cannell's ward was the only heavily exposed ward left unaffected. Was it by mere chance, Cannell wondered, that his patients dodged the sickness?

A few months later, Cannell ran across a possible answer in the scientific literature. In the July 2005 FASEB Journal, Adrian F. Gombart of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and his colleagues reported that vitamin D boosts production in white blood cells of one of the antimicrobial compounds that defends the body against germs.

Immediately, Cannell says, the proverbial lightbulb went on in his head: Maybe the high doses of vitamin D that he had been prescribing to virtually all the men on his ward had boosted their natural arsenal of the antimicrobial, called cathelicidin, and protected them from flu. Cannell had been administering the vitamin D because his patients, like many other people in the industrial world, had shown a deficiency:
...
On the basis of more than 100 articles that he collected, Cannell and seven other researchers now propose that vitamin D deficiency may underlie a vulnerability to infections by the microbes that cathelicidin targets. These include bacteria, viruses, and fungi, the group notes in a http://www.biochem.wisc.edu/courses/biochem901/secure/materials/readings/09_Cannell.pdf&images=yes">report available online for an upcoming Epidemiology and Infection.

This is only a hypothesis, "but a very credible one" that deserves testing, says immunologist Michael Zasloff of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
...
Although the arguments in the paper by Cannell's group "are provocative," [Molecular geneticist John H.] White says, "I find them believable."

So does [dermatologist and immunologist Richard L.] Gallo. "There are many microbes out there that rarely-to-never cause disease in immunocompetent individuals. It's not because the microbes don't choose to infect us," he notes. "It's because the body's immune defense against the microbes is sufficient to control their proliferation." It's possible, he says, that a shortfall in vitamin D might seriously compromise that defense.
...
Gombart's group is developing rodents in which vitamin D modulates cathelicidin.

Until such lab animals are available, vitamin D's impact--even on flu risk--"should be explored in clinical trials," Zasloff says, because the treatment poses little risk to people.

Moreover, he argues, the payoff from any positive finding "would be amazing. Imagine being able to block the spread of epidemic flu with appropriate doses of this vitamin."