WHO keeps flu alert on 5, urges no travel limits

The World Health Organization kept its pandemic flu alert at phase 5 on a six-level scale on Friday and repeated a call for countries not to restrict travel because of the H1N1 influenza outbreak.

After a meeting of its emergency committee, the United Nations agency said it had agreed in future to take into account the severity of a flu outbreak and not just its geographical spread when announcing alert changes. Phase 6 means a full pandemic is in progress and phase 5, the current level, means one is imminent.

The United Nations agency has been weighing how to revamp its pandemic alert scale to reflect both the severity of the flu as well as its geographic spread.

This follows criticism that it may have caused undue panic about the new strain whose effects have been mainly mild apart from in Mexico, where it is known to have killed 103 people.

Globally we believe that we are at phase five but are getting closer to phase six

Keiji Fukuda, WHO

H1N1 severity

Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman added that travel recommendations would be discussed by the emergency committee.

The experts would also be asked to give their opinion on "adding a characterization of severity" to the alert scale.

A senior WHO official said Tuesday that the world was "getting closer" to a swine flu pandemic as the virus shows early signs of spreading locally in countries outside the Americas.

"Globally we believe that we are at phase five but are getting closer to phase six," Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general, said then.

He cited Australia, Britain, Japan, Spain and Chile in particular as countries where the flu was showing early signs of local spread.

Australia's swine flu tally jumped by more than a third to nearly 900 on Thursday.

More than 21,940 cases have been reported in 69 countries around the world, with 125 deaths, according to latest figures on the WHO website. Mexico, the United States and Canada have borne the brunt of the illness and a case was confirmed in Saudi Arabia for the first time. Work continues on developing a vaccine.

Under the WHO's guidelines, one key criteria for a move to the highest phase six alert would be established community spread in a country outside the first region in which the disease was initially reported, in this case, outside the Americas.

Other than geographical spread, WHO officials said last month that they were also looking at the severity of the virus, possible changes in the pattern of illness, its impact on poor countries or circulation in the southern hemisphere where it could mix with seasonal flu.

Fukuda said that the swine flu situation could be described as "moderate" rather than "mild." This is because "we do not have a full handle on the number of people with serious illnesses," he added.