30 April 2009

Scanners in operation as WHO lifts pandemic alert level

GENEVA - The UN's World Health Organisation has raised the alert over swine flu to level five - one short of a full-blown global epidemic, or pandemic.

A phase five alert means human-to-human transmission in at least two countries.

The BBC reports the move comes after a 23-month-old Mexican child died in Texas - the first death from swine flu outside Mexico, where the outbreak originated.

In Spain, officials confirmed the first case of swine flu in a person who had not travelled to Mexico.

Thermal scanners have begun to screen travellers for high temperatures at eight of Australia's international airports to help prevent swine flu from entering the nation's borders.

The scanning process is expected to cause significant delays for arriving airline passengers and the Australian government has called for travellers to be patient.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the scanners would Ã¢â¬Åâœidentify everyone with a raised temperature, which may not include flu let alone swine flu, but what it means is anyone with a raised temperature will go through the process with a clinical assessment.

"Many of those people may well be given the nod and sent on their way," she said.

The number of suspected cases of swine flu in New Zealand has grown to 104. Of these, officials said there were still 13 probable cases of swine flu, with three confirmed by the World Health Organisation.

Foreigners have been rushing to leave Mexico fearing more flight cancellations

Occupancy rates in many Mexico City hotels have sunk to around 10 percent, according to an AFP interview with Arturo Mendicuti, president of the capital's chamber of commerce.

France will ask the European Union today to suspend all flights going to Mexico because of the flu outbreak, Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot said.

The WHO, however, says measures like travel bans are unlikely to prove effective.

Announcing the latest alert level after an emergency WHO meeting in Geneva, director general Margaret Chan urged all countries to activate their pandemic plans, including heightened surveillance and infection-control measures.

She said action should be undertaken with "increased urgency".

She added: "It really is the whole of humanity that is under threat in a pandemic."

But she also said the world was "better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history".