WHO refining guidelines for pandemic alert phases

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WHO refining guidelines for pandemic alert phases

Tue 30 May 2006 9:36 AM ET

GENEVA, May 30 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) said

on Tuesday it was refining its guidelines for a global influenza

pandemic alert to make them clearer.

Nervous financial markets were shaken last week on talk that the

United Nations agency was about to raise its level of alert from its

current three on a six-point scale after a family in Indonesia went

down with the deadly disease.

There was concern that the spread of the H5N1 virus amongst seven

members of the family in northern Sumatra, the biggest cluster of

human cases yet, indicated that the virus was becoming better at

infecting people.

But the WHO subsequently said tests showed that there had been no

significant genetic changes and that the virus had not become more

dangerous to humans.

" It was highlighted last week that there is some confusion over these

phases, what we mean when we go from phase three to phase four, " WHO

spokeswoman Cheng told a briefing.

The revised guidelines, expected to be issued in a few weeks, would

aim to make the language " more acceptable (and) understandable, " she

said.

" What we are trying to do is explain (it) in better terminology so

that people understand that what we are looking for is not

necessarily a numerical standard for the number of cases, " Cheng

said. " We're looking to detect any change in how the virus is

transmitted. "

Level three means some very limited human-to-human transmission of

bird flu has occurred, while level four signals evidence of increased

human-to-human transmission.

Gully, senior adviser to WHO's top bird flu official Margaret

Chan, told Reuters in an interview last Friday:

" Clearly, it is a judgement call in terms of going from phase three

to four. Our feeling now is there is nothing new that has happened

which would make us want to consider moving to level four. "

Bird flu remains essentially an animal disease, but it has taken 127

lives among 224 known cases in 10 countries since 2003.

Phase five would signal evidence of " significant human to human

transmission " , while six would signal onset of a pandemic, which the

WHO has warned could take millions of lives.

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L30772861