WHO official says world edging towards pandemic

The newly-discovered strain had caused more infections than seasonal influenza at the start of Chile's flu season, raising concern about how it would spread in the southern hemisphere, according to Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's acting assistant director-general.

The virus has mainly affected people aged below 60 and caused 117 deaths worldwide, including some otherwise healthy people, he said. For now, the WHO's pandemic scale remained at the second-highest level but the threshold may soon be crossed.

"Globally we believe that we are at Phase 5 but we are getting closer to Phase 6," Fukuda told journalists. "The future impact of this infection has yet to unfold."

He added: "It is probably fair to call the situation something like moderate right now. We do have some hesitation to call the situation mild."

The new flu, a mixture of swine, bird, and human viruses, remains most prevalent in North America but has infected nearly 19,000 people in 64 countries, according to the U.N. agency's latest toll, which tends to lag behind national figures but is considered more secure.

Fukuda said that, while many countries had reported only a small number of infections linked to people traveling to the disease epicenters of Mexico and the United States, others were starting to see more sustained patterns of infection in schools, offices and neighborhoods.

"There are a number of countries that appear to be transition, moving from travel-related cases to more established community types of spread," he said, citing Australia, Britain, Chile, Japan and Spain as examples.

"We still are waiting for evidence of really widespread community activity in these countries. It is fair to say that they are in transition and are not quite there yet which is why we are not in Phase 6 yet," Fukuda said.

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