WHO: H1N1 Pandemic Is Over

The worldwide H1N1 pandemic is over

The worldwide H1N1 pandemic is over, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control said Tuesday.

“We are moving out of the pandemic into the post-pandemic period,” said Margaret Chan, WHO director-general.

She explained that out-of-season flu outbreaks are no longer seen in the northern and southern hemispheres, even if New Zealand and India continue to have some H1N1 cases.

The threat of H1N1 gripped the entire world with the WHO branding it as a pandemic and issued out warnings a year ago.

In a news conference, Chan expressed relief that their worst fears did not come to pass. “This pandemic has turned out to have been much more fortunate than what we feared a little over a year ago,” she said.

“This time around, we have been aided by pure good luck,” she added.

The WHO pointed out some reasons why the pandemic has finally ended. For one, they said that the virus failed to mutate into a lethal form, the developed vaccine proved to be a good match, and antiviral drug Tamiflu did not encounter resistance to many people who received the drug.

A pandemic is defined as a sudden outbreak of a disease by human transmission which becomes widespread to affect large regions or many countries. The H1N1 pandemic was announced on June 11, 2009 by the WHO.

Meanwhile, the CDC said that the U.S. Public Health emergency for the H1N1 virus they issued earlier was discontinued on June 23, 2010.

Posted by George Daniels on Wednesday August 11 2010, 11:05 AM EST. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Health. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0