It's eight months into the H1N1 pandemic. The World Health Organization says although the presence of the virus in the southern hemisphere was minimal and the number of infections was on the decline in parts of the northern hemisphere, it would be premature to declare the pandemic over. WHO says the H1N1 pandemic appears to have reached its peak earlier than season flu, adding that it cannot rule out another wave of infections in late winter or spring. Dr. Keiji Fukuda is the Special Adviser to the WHO Director on Pandemic Influenza.
"We see that activity or infections continue at quite high levels in several different countries, and so, for example, we see that activity continues to be at high levels in parts of Europe, such as France and Switzerland and the Czech Republic. We see that activity continues to be high in parts of Central Asia, such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgistan; and we all see that activity continues to be high in some very large countries, such as Russia. We are continuing to asses and monitor activity, but right now we cannot predict whether we will see another upsurge in significant activity in the earlier parts of 2010."
Dr. Fukuda says WHO was still on course to supporting countries with little or no access to the pandemic vaccines. He says 180 million doses of the pandemic vaccines have so far been donated to WHO and will be distributed to 95 countries, mainly in the developing world. Among the first countries expected to receive the donations are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Mongolia.
Patrick Maigua, United Nations Radio Geneva
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