Now the Mexican flu virus is turning up in more and more countries, the World Health Organisation is considering raising the alert to the highest level. This would give the outbreak the official status of a pandemic.

Mild
On Tuesday it was announced that a 12-year-old girl in Egypt was infected with Mexican flu. This is the first time the virus has appeared in Africa, and it is now being transmitted from person to person on every continent. For the WHO this could be a reason to raise the alert to level six – the highest level. The outbreak would then gain the status of an epidemic. But such a high alert level says nothing about the severity of the flu itself, says Dutch virologist Ab Osterhaus.

“The pandemic is defined on the basis of contagion criteria, but it’s still a mild flu. At level six people think of high mortality, but that isn’t the case at present, although we still don’t have the full picture and the virus could mutate into a dangerous variant.”

And this is still the virologists’ worst fear. Worldwide, 19,000 infections have now been recorded, and 117 people have died of the disease. Most of the deaths were in Mexico, where the virus originated. But in the United States the number of cases has also been rising rapidly in recent weeks. According to the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 10,000 people in the country have contracted the virus, and it is thought the true figure could be much higher. On Tuesday, the Chilean authorities announced the first death from Mexican flu in Chile, and for that matter in South America. Dutch virologist Ab Osterhaus says an outbreak on this continent is one of the most likely scenarios.

Risk
“We now see the biggest risk in the southern hemisphere, because there winter is approaching, which provides the best conditions for seasonal flu. So I’m thinking of South America, Australia and New Zealand. We don’t know much about Africa, but there is less air traffic there, so in that respect there’s less risk.”

In Europe too there are a growing number of cases of Influenza A (H1N1), as the virus is officially known. In Spain, schools were closed due to an outbreak among pupils. In the Netherlands, on Tuesday the country’s fourth case was diagnosed in a woman who recently returned from a trip to the United States.

Vaccine
Mr Osterhaus says Western European countries are so well prepared for a pandemic that they are already buying in vaccines on a mass scale. But the same can’t be said for poorer countries, even though they run a greater risk of experiencing an outbreak.

“What you’re seeing now is that the European countries and the United States are buying in the vaccine. The problem is that many countries aren’t doing this yet and there will only be enough vaccine available for a third of the world’s population at most, so what will happen in the other countries? The WHO is now discussing whether it’s possible to reserve ten percent of the vaccine for poor countries.”

Mr Osterhaus doesn’t think the vaccine will be available on a large scale in the near future – it could take more than six months.

rnw translation (mb)