Clear vision of flu pandemic needed to avoid unnecessary panic

Source: Xinhua | 05-08-2009 15:55

GENEVA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- As the A/H1N1 flu virus continues to spread, the World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated recently that it's possible to finally raise the pandemic alert level to phase 6, which means a world-wide influenza pandemic is under way.

What exactly is a pandemic? How wide and hard will it infect people? Can the world cope with it? To answer these questions, people need to have a clear vision of the real meaning of this flu epidemic to avoid unnecessary panic.

NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

Flu pandemic sounds terrifying as it once claimed many lives, especially the notorious "Spanish flu" in 1918, which caused astonishing 40 to 50 million deaths worldwide.

Normally a flu pandemic is caused by a newly-emerged or not-known-by-human virus. Due to human body's lack of immunity to this new virus and the lag of vaccine production, many people can be easily infected and even die from complications.

However, the severity of flu pandemics is different. The two flu epidemics in 1957 and 1968 exerted far less severe impact on the world, and caused much fewer deaths.

WHO experts and officials have repeatedly pointed out that a pandemic by definition mainly refers to the geographic spread of the disease, instead of the severity of consequences.