Swine Flu Garners Pandemic Status

June 11, 2009— -- The World Health Organization this morning formally declared that swine flu had reached the level of a full-blown pandemic, moving the viral outbreaks to phase 6 on the pandemic alert scale.

WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan met with flu experts at 6 a.m. ET today in Geneva to discuss the spread of the novel virus, and since Wednesday the escalation to the highest level of pandemic alert had been widely anticipated.

The move reflects the continued spread of the virus around the globe, despite quarantines, school closings and other measures designed to keep it in check. Swine flu is the first official influenza pandemic in more than 40 years.

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However, public health experts say there's no reason for the public to be more concerned about the virus today than yesterday; indeed, it is unlikely that much will change at all for the general public.

A joint statement issued today by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano noted that the WHO decision "was expected" and that it "doesn't change what we have been doing here in the United States to prepare for and respond to this public health challenge."

Health experts concurred. "From a macro view, the main actions defined for WHO phase 5 are the same as those for phase 6," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "However, individual countries and communities may have conditioned key tactical and operational steps of their response to the WHO phases, so there could be significant local, regional, or national impact. Technically, we have been in phase 6 for some time."

"When you hear this announcement, and your children are with you, main thing is to reassure kids not really all that much is going to change unless things get more severe," Dr. Irwin Redlener of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York, told "Good Morning America."

Other infectious disease experts were quick to point out that the pandemic designation refers to the spread of a disease -- not its severity.

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"WHO's declaration that the H1N1 virus infection is now pandemic in nature merely confirms the obvious that there is community transmission worldwide," said Dr. Pascal James Imperato, dean of the Graduate Program in Public Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. "A level 6 is only a statement of geographic spread, not a statement defining severity of clinical illness."