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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kasuncs" data-source="post: 4455517" data-attributes="member: 31897">WHO confirms pandemic threat raised to 5Wed Apr 29, 2009 4:38pm EDT Email | Print |Share| Reprints | Single Page[-] Text [+]GENEVA (Reuters) - World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan raised the pandemic threat awareness level to 5 on Wednesday, meaning the world is at imminent risk of a pandemic from H1N1 swine flu."I have decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5," Chan told a news briefing.Level 6 is the final stage, a pandemic -- a global epidemic of a new and deadly disease.Chan said she hoped to reassure governments but urged them to prepare for the worst."The world is better prepared for an influenza pandemic than at any time in history," Chan said. "For the first time in history we can track the pandemic in real time."The H1N1 swine flu virus has spread around the world, killing an estimated 159 people in Mexico, claiming the life of a Mexican toddler in the United States, and infecting people in at least eight other countries.It is a never-before-seen mix of swine, avian and human viruses and it is not clear how deadly it is or how easily it transmits from one person to another."No matter what the situation is, the international community should treat this as a window of opportunity to ramp up ... response," Chan said."It is really all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."Pharmaceutical companies should ramp up manufacturing she said. Two antiviral drugs -- Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Tamiflu, made by Roche AG -- have been shown to work against the H1N1 swine flu strain.(Reporting by Laura MacInnis and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Editing by Sandra Maler)</blockquote>

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