The World Health Organization declared an influenza pandemic on Thursday and advised governments to prepare for a long-term battle against an unstoppable new flu virus.
The United Nations agency raised its pandemic flu alert to phase 6 on a six-point scale, indicating the first influenza pandemic since 1968 is under way.People aged 30-50, pregnant women or people suffering from chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes or obesity are at highest risk.
The virus has killed 109 people in Mexico, where it was first detected in April before spreading to the rest of the world, prompting the Mexican government to temporarily shut schools and businesses in an effort to slow its spread.Countries from Australia to Chile to the United States are reporting that the new swine flu virus is "crowding out" seasonal flu, becoming the predominant influenza strain.
There is also a risk the swine flu could mix with its seasonal H1N1 cousin, which has developed resistance to the main antiviral flu drug Tamiflu, made by Roche AG and Gilead Sciences Inc, Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a briefing.The United States has been operating on pandemic status for weeks, with hundreds of thousands of cases and at least 1,000 hospitalizations.
The virus disproportionately makes younger people sick. Some 57 percent of U.S. cases were among people aged 5 to 24, and 41 percent of those hospitalized were in this younger age group.
WHO reiterated its advice to its 193 member countries not to close borders or impose travel restrictions to halt the movement of people, goods and services, a call echoed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
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