Swine Flu raised to Level 6

One week ago on June 11, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization raised the level of swine flu alert level from phase 5 to phase 6. Strangely enough, it didn't hog media headlines as it did when the alert level was raised to level 4 in April. The news simply failed to garner as much media attention, with hardly any response from the various capital markets.

I think mass media did it right by playing the news down. As governments are busy devising precautionary measures to fight against swine flu, additional issues arising from a panic-stricken crowd is the last thing we want to see. If you carefully read the WHO descriptions of the different phases, we should be at phase 6 much earlier, like one month ago. WHO might have postponed the decision after requests and pressures from countries' officials.

Phase 5 is characterized by human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.

Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5. Designation of this phase will indicate that a global pandemic is under way.

Do we not have flu outbreak in many countries in different continents one month ago?

Frankly, there is no reason to be afraid. Swine flu mortality rate is very low at present. Be prepared. Wear a mask if you need to. Be vigilant. Take the precautionary steps to protect yourself. And don't panic! You don't have to cancel your holiday trip to Perth, or Alaska. You can proceed with your business trip to Dubai and come back in one piece.



PS. I prefer the name swine flu than H1N1 because flying pigs are cute :)