the OMS raises the alert level for swine flu but there is no border closures

* The UN health agency raises the alert level 4 on a scale of six
* It is found that the virus passes from person to person, but not so rampant
* The organization warns that no country is immune to the spread of the virus
* However, it is recommended to treat the virus with antiviral and no travel ban
* In Spain there are 26 patients under observation, but only one confirmed
* The most frequent questions and answers about the virus of swine influenza
* How some tips
Visit our interactive map of places affected by the flu
* Telephone hotline for citizens in Spain: 901 400 100

Director of Public Health at the WHO says that the response to the epidemic has been "extraordinary" and that they were prepared for bird flu.
Go to photo gallery swine influenza in the five continents

Passengers walk in front of a electronic bulletin board at the airport in Frankfurt Main, Germany. Departures and arrivals of flights remained unchanged for now in most European airports, despite suspected cases of swine flu in territorios.EFE / Boris Roessler
RTVE.es / GENEVA AGENCIAS 28.04.2009 - 08:50 hla World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the alert level for pandemic influenza swine from level 3 to 4 (on a scale of six) but without reaching recommend the restriction of movement. While in Mexico and about 150 are likely dead due to illness.

The director general of the UN agency, Margaret Chan, has taken this decision after consulting with the expert committee of WHO. Level 4 is ordered when it is verified that the A/H1N1 virus is transmitted from person to person.

Director of Public Health, WHO, Maria Neira, explained on Radio National that "containment measures are not effective" and now tries to avoid "local transmission".

She noted that health authorities were "ready" because the experience of four or five years of bird flu has served to "improve the ability to react." Overall, Neira has praised the transparency and "extraordinary speed with which individual countries have acted with a degree of coordination" unprecedented. "

Neira has also stressed that the virus circulating "the closure of borders does not arise" and now there are insufficient data to assess whether Mexico has reacted appropriately against swine flu.

More shots

The assistant director of WHO, Keiji Fukuda, along the same lines said in a press conference that "experience shows that the travel restrictions and border closures have little effect on curbing the movement of the virus."

WHO promotes the continued production of vaccines for the common flu (seasonal), as it helps to neutralize the virus of swine influenza, while working to create a specific vaccine against it, which can take between 4 and 6 months and several months to manufacture in large quantities.

Although not recommended restricting travel, the WHO noted that it is logical steps to be followed to avoid foreign travel, if one is sick, or go to the doctor after a trip if a person develops symptoms of flu.

Containment

This Monday was the second meeting of the WHO emergency, established in 2005, after the meeting on Saturday, a few days of the alarm set off by the many cases in Mexico regristrados.

The shift to a higher phase of pandemic alert indicates, according to the WHO, which has increased the possibility of a pandemic, but it is not inevitable.

According to Fukuda, the failure to come to the stage 5 is that epidemiological data indicate that transmission between humans is not yet supported. As an example quoted the only confirmed case in Spain, for a couple of 23 years of Almansa returned from a trip to Mexico. "This is a case of a person who has returned from Mexico, but we do not see that the virus has spread from it to other people in your community."

Fukuda said that one of the questions on the crisis that still has no answer to WHO is why the disease is much worse in Mexico, where more than 20 deaths and 150 suspected and confirmed more than 1,600 patients in the other countries such as United States, where nearly all 40 cases are mild and no deaths. The other countries with confirmed cases are Canada and Scotland, where two cases were confirmed this Monday afternoon.

Swine flu, a traditional strain of subtype H1N1 that has mutated in pigs (contains genes from avian influenza, swine and human) in humans causes fever over 39 degrees, cough, severe headache, muscle aches and joints, irritation of eyes and flow trap. They recommend monitoring your condition if you have been in Mexico. So far all the cases come from there.