WHO declares swine flu pandemic is over

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GENEVA: The World Health Organisation on Tuesday declared the swine flu pandemic over, more than a year after the new virus spread around the world, sparking panic and killing thousands before fizzling out.

"The world is no longer in phase six of the pandemic alert. We are now moving into the post-pandemic period," WHO Director General Margaret Chan said in a telephone news conference.

"The new H1N1 virus has largely run its course," she added, saying an international public health emergency "no longer applies."

The top phase of the WHO's six tier pandemic alert scale corresponds to a pandemic, or global spread of a disease.

The step followed advice given earlier Tuesday by the WHO's advisory emergency committee of 15 external scientists headed by Australian infectious diseases expert John Mackenzie, which heard evidence from representatives of Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa.

The WHO's top flu official, Keiji Fukuda, told journalists that the A(H1N1) influenza virus was no longer considered to be capable of causing another pandemic, even if more severe outbreaks might occur in some countries.

Swine flu has killed more than 18,449 people and affected some 214 countries and territories since it was uncovered in Mexico and the United States in April 2009, according to WHO data.

The new virus spread swiftly worldwide despite drastic measures including a week long shutdown in Mexico, prompting the UN health agency to scale up its alerts and declare a pandemic on June 11, 2009, banishing kisses and frowning on handshakes.

Fears about the impact of swine flu on unprotected populations and a harmful mutation sparked a rush for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of specially-developed vaccines and a flurry of public health precautions.

However, those concerns dwindled in late 2009 to be replaced by recriminations in Western nations about the cost of unused vaccines and what some European critics regarded as an unjustified scare.

Fukuda said Tuesday that said about 300 million people had been vaccinated worldwide against A(H1N1).

After petering out in Europe and the United States before their winter flu season was over, in recent months swine flu has affected parts of South Asia and "limited areas" of tropical South and Central America, as well as Africa for their second season.