WHO raises alert level to 5; still no cases in NMI

The CNMI Department of Pubic Health assured the public that it is doing everything it can to help prevent the spread of the swine flu virus, even as the World Health Organization raised the worldwide pandemic alert level from Phase 4 to 5 in a span of 24 hours due to the growing number of infections of the H1N1 virus.

DPH said a phase 5 alert means there are larger clusters of the virus but person-to-person spread is still localized.

This could mean the virus is becoming increasingly better adapted to humans but may not yet be fully transmissible.

DPH reassured the public that no cases have been identified in the CNMI at this time.

“As of today, 91 cases of swine flu had been confirmed in the U.S. with one confirmed death, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The confirmed U.S. cases are in Arizona, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Texas, Ohio, Kansas, and New York City. Swine flu infections are increasing in numbers internationally and include Austria, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, United Kingdom, and Israel,” said the news update released by the DPH yesterday.

Member agencies of the Pandemic Flu Committee met early this week to update the swine flu situation and activate plans to mitigate flu transmission in the CNMI.

“This is a situation where we must all be on the alert,” said DPH Secretary Joseph Kevin Villagomez.

“We have ramped up surveillance and we have activated our Emergency Operations Plan for Pandemic Influenza. We also have implemented our Influenza-A testing program on all our clinics including Tinian and Rota.”

DPH said it has provided rapid flu test kits to Marianas Health Center and Medical Associates of the Pacific Clinics on Saipan through the Bioterrorism and Pandemic Flu Program.

Patients seen at public health clinics and the two private clinics that have high fever, cough or sore throat are tested using the rapid flu test.

DPH said that extra precautions are being taken in screening for the flu because there’s no way of determining if a person has the swine flu without laboratory confirmation off-island.

“The global concern is that the swine flu outbreak could become a pandemic, or an infection that spreads across a large region or worldwide,” DPH said.

It said that a pandemic usually occurs every 30 to 40 years and there has not been a flu pandemic in more than 40 years. “The concern with the swine flu virus is that this is a completely new flu virus and people don’t have antibodies or resistance to fight it, DPH explained.

Accordingly, there is no vaccine for the swine flu although antivirals are available to treat it.