Swine flu pandemic officially over

The World Health Organisation has declared the swine flu pandemic officially over, months after many national authorities started cancelling vaccine orders and shutting down hot lines as the disease ebbed from the headlines.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the organisation’s emergency committee of top flu experts advised her that the pandemic had “largely run its course” and the world is no longer in phase six – the highest influenza alert level.

“I fully agree with the committee’s advice,” Dr Chan told reporters in a telephone briefing from her native Hong Kong.

The virus has now entered the “post-pandemic” phase, meaning disease activity around the world has returned to levels usually seen for seasonal influenza, she said. But Dr Chan cautioned against complacency, saying that even though hospital admittances and deaths have dropped sharply, countries should still keep a watchful eye for unusual patterns of infection and mutations that might render existing vaccines and antiviral drugs ineffective.

“It is likely that the virus will continue to cause serious disease in younger age groups,” she said, urging high-risk groups such as pregnant women to continue seeking vaccination.

Unusually, swine flu hits young adults harder than the over-65s, who are believed to have some immunity to the A(H1N1) strain.

At least 18,449 people have died worldwide since the outbreak began in April of last year. WHO said last week that the true figure is likely to be higher, but the organisation’s flu chief, Keiji Fukuda, said a final number won’t be known for some months.

Lab-confirmed deaths globally increased by only about 300 in the past two months and many countries have long since closed the chapter on swine flu.

Health authorities in Britain shut down their pandemic flu hot line in February and cancelled vaccine orders by a third back in April as it became clear the pandemic strain would be less dangerous than feared. Worst-case scenarios had predicted up to 65,000 deaths in Britain. In the end there were 457 confirmed deaths from swine flu.