Swine Flu UPDATE:WHO Meets To Decide If H1N1 Will Become Pandemic

Swine Flu UPDATE:WHO Meets To Decide If H1N1 Will Become Pandemic in an emergency meeting for Thursday, June 11th, 2009.

The World Health Organization scheduled an emergency meeting today to decide whether to declare a global swine flu pandemic as confirmed cases of H1N1 virus continue to soar worldwide.

(pic)Hong Kong kindergarten students, some wearing masks, at school in a residential estate. Aren’t they cute?

By early Thursday morning,June 11th, 2009, the U.N. health agency, WHO, The World Health Organization, had recorded more than 27,700 cases in 74 countries, with 141 deaths.

In Hong Kong, Health authorities ordered the closure of all elementary schools, kindergartens and day-care centers in the city after 12 students were found to be infected with the virus. This movement came also on Thursday, June, 11th, 2009.

“Authorities have not determined the source of the H1n1 infection,” stated Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Donald Tsang. “This makes it the first cluster of swine flu cases in the city without a link to someone who had traveled overseas.”

The Swine flu or H1N1 continues to spread around the world, with a number of cases continue to grow in Britain, Japan and Australia. Mexico , the U.S. and Canada is where the virus was first detected in April of 2009.

If the WHO declares a pandemic today, it will be the first flu pandemic in 41 years. Also the first major move of the fairly new WHO.

“We know that the virus is spreading and we are now seeing that activity is picking up in a number of countries and this is, as I had mentioned before last week, we know that we are getting closer to probably a pandemic situation,” Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s assistant director general of health security and environment.

Swine Flu UPDATE:WHO Meets To Decide If H1N1 Will Become Pandemic. “The United Nations health agency, WHO, is based in Geneva, is working to prepare governments first to prevent an overreaction…if WHO’s six-step pandemic scale is raised to its highest level,” Keiji Fukuda, continued.

“What this would mean is that spread of the virus has continued and that activity has become established in at least two regions of the world. It does not mean that the severity of the situation has increased and that people are getting seriously sick at higher numbers or higher rates than they are right now. This is a very important point for countries to understand.”

“The schools and day-care centers in Hong Kong were told to close for 14 days as investigators tried to identify the source of the infection,” stated Tsang, the chief executive. “The health department will decide after two weeks whether or not to continue the shut-down.”

A month ago, the city of Hong Kong quarantined about 300 hotel guests for a week, after the first case of the virus was confirmed there.

Hong Kong’s abundance of caution stems from the government’s unwillingness to see a repeat of the SARS epidemic in 2004 that killed nearly 300 people and spread around the world, as well.

Also on Thursday, June 11th, 2009, Israel’s health ministry announced that the number of people diagnosed with swine flu was 68.

Health officials have begun using the virus’ clinical name H1N1 to reflect that it’s actually a combination of several different types of flu. Plus many are concerned about the confusion whether eating pork can spread the virus. It does not.

Is the swine flu or H1N1 just hype? Is it no worse than any other flu season or virus out there or will it become the next black plague? With modern medicine and better hygienic practices, I do not think so.

For the full story of “Swine Flu UPDATE:WHO Meets To Decide If H1N1 Will Become Pandemic,” go to CNN News.