WHO RAISES FLU THREAT LEVEL

pagi. update berita tentang flu ibab, semakin mengkhawatirkan:

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the world is at the brink of a pandemic, raising its threat level as the swine flu virus spread and killed the first person outside of Mexico, a toddler in Texas.
"Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world," WHO Director General Margaret Chan told a news conference in Geneva as she raised the official alert level to phase 5, the last step before a pandemic.
"The biggest question is this: how severe will the pandemic be, especially now at the start," Chan said. But she added that the world "is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history."
Nearly a week after the H1N1 swine flu virus first emerged in California and Texas and was found to have caused dozens of deaths in Mexico, Spain reported the first case in Europe of swine flu in a person who had not been to Mexico, illustrating the danger of person-to-person transmission.
Both U.S. and European officials have said they expect to see swine flu deaths.
President Barack Obama said during an evening news conference at the White House there was no need for panic and rejected the possibility of closing the border with Mexico. (reuters)