World Health Organisation raise pandemic level

The World Health Organisation has raised the swine flu pandemic threat from phase 4 to 5 - its second-highest level. According to the WHO's pandemic flu response guidelines, a phase 5 alert is called when there is human-to-human spread of virus in at least two countries in one region. Earlier, US authorities said a Mexican toddler had died in Texas of swine flu in the first confirmed fatality from the disease outside Mexico. The 23-month-old boy, from the northeastern city of Matamoros on the border with Texas, died in Houston from the H1N1 flu strain. Officials said he had been visiting family in southern Texas when he became ill. Texas Governor Rick Perry has issued a disaster proclamation with 16 confirmed cases of swine flu in the state. President Barack Obama said: "We are closely and continuously monitoring the emergent cases of this virus throughout the United States. This is obviously a serious situation. Serious enough to take the utmost precautions." There have been 159 deaths in Mexico from the disease, according to the World Health Organisation, with 2,498 people currently infected there. Mexico's Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said cases range from children through young adults and middle-aged people to the elderly, a different pattern to common seasonal flu which mainly kills the elderly and people with other underlying conditions. In the US, 91 people are confirmed to have caught the disease, 16 in Canada, 19 in Europe and 3 in New Zealand. Excluding Mexico, there are more than 300 suspected cases so far worldwide, including 150 in Europe, as well as over 100 cases in New Zealand and Australia. Reports from Spain said the first person in the country confirmed to have caught swine flu had not been to Mexico but had recently been in contact with someone who had travelled there.

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ITN | April 29, 2009

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