Swine flu could return with a vengeance: WHO

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The World Health Organization, or WHO, chief warned yesterday that swine flu could return with a vengeance despite Mexican President Felipe Calderon insisting his country has contained the epidemic.

WHO chief Margaret Chan said that a second wave of the virus "would be the biggest of all outbreaks the world has faced in the 21st century", puncturing optimism emanating from the outbreak's epicenter.

A leading U.S. health expert echoed Chan’s warning, saying yesterday that while "there are encouraging signs" of a leveling off in the severity of the flu threat, it's still too early to declare the problem under control.

"I'm not ready to say that yet," Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said when asked about indications by Mexican health authorities that the disease has peaked there.

Some 226 swine flu cases have been confirmed in 30 states, said U.S. health officials, adding more are expected. More countries are confirming cases every day with Portugal the latest to join the list, while France announced two new confirmed cases as did Italy, doubling its previous caseload. Japan tripled the number of quarantine officers at Tokyo's Narita airport to try to detect cases at the start of a holiday week.

Mexican President Calderon said Mexico had managed "to contain the epidemic" and was now "in a position to overcome" the A(H1N1) virus. Mexico's Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova also said the epidemic peaked between April 23 and 28 and was "in its phase of decline," according to a report by Agence France-Presse.

But Chan said the end of the flu season in the northern hemisphere meant that while any initial outbreak could be milder, a second wave could be more lethal, reflecting a pattern seen with the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed up to 50 million people.

"We hope the virus fizzles out, because if it doesn't we are heading for a big outbreak," Chan told the Financial Times in an interview, adding it could re-emerge in the months ahead with a vengeance. "I'm not predicting the pandemic will blow up, but if I miss it and we don't prepare, I fail. I'd rather over-prepare than not prepare." The UN agency last week raised its alert level to five, one a scale of one to six, indicating a global pandemic is imminent.



Avoiding wave of panic

In an interview with Spain's El Pais newspaper, Chan said it was important to avoid a "wave of panic" if the alert level was raised to the maximum six, adding that such a move would not mean "the end of the world."

Diplomatic damage from the epidemic also reverberated with China denying it had discriminated against Mexican nationals after dozens were placed under quarantine over the weekend despite showing no signs of the flu. Mexico, who was upset because Chinese health officials have quarantined more than 70 Mexican travelers even though some are apparently not at risk for the virus, said it was sending a plane to China to bring back its citizens.

In one case, a Mexican couple and their three small children were rousted from their hotel room at 4 a.m. and transported to a hospital, said Jorge Guajardo, the Mexican ambassador to Beijing. None of those in isolation has presented symptoms and most had no contact with infected persons or places, he said.

"In many cases we have gotten reports that they were being quarantined for the sole fact that they had a Mexican passport, whether or not they came from Mexico, whether or not they had been in Mexico, whether or not they had been in contact with someone else from Mexico," The Associated Press quoted Guajardo as saying. Calderon expressed dismay that "some countries or places are taking discriminatory measures because of ignorance and misinformation."