Swine flu declared pandemic by WHO

GENEVA — Swine flu is now formally a pandemic, a declaration by U.N. health officials that will speed vaccine production and spur government spending to combat the first global flu epidemic in 41 years.

Thursday's announcement by the World Health Organization doesn't mean the virus is any more lethal — only that its spread is considered unstoppable.

Beginning Thursday, Utah state health officials will forgo reporting the number of confirmed cases of H1N1 flu, opting only to follow those cases that have been hospitalized as "a better measure of the severity of the outbreak," according to a statement by the Utah Department of Health. "It permits us to compare the severity of this year's outbreak to the seasonal influenza severity in previous years." Officials said some 90 Utahns with H1N1 have been hospitalized, which is 38 more than were reported on Monday. "Influenza-like illness rates were elevated from June 5-June 8, but preliminary data indicates those rates have dropped back to an expected (normal) level," the statement said.

Since swine flue was first detected in late April in Mexico and the United States, it has reached 74 countries, infecting nearly 29,000 people. Most who catch the bug have only mild symptoms and don't need medical treatment.

WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the long-awaited declaration after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts and said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency's highest alert level — which means a pandemic is under way.

"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century," Chan said in Geneva.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, the new head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta that he does not expect widespread public anxiety in the United States as a result of the declaration, noting it came nearly two months after the virus was identified.

For many weeks, U.S. health officials have been treating it as a pandemic, increasing the availability of anti-viral flu medicines and pouring money into a possible vaccination program. And scientists have grown to understand that the virus is generally not much more severe than the seasonal flu.

"That helps to tamp down any fears that may be excessive," Frieden said at a news conference — his first as CDC director.

But the virus can still be deadly and may change into a more frightening form in the near future, and so people should not be complacent, he added.