世卫组织宣布甲型H1N1疫情结束

世界卫生组织总干事陈冯富珍女士10日在新闻发布会上宣布，肆虐全球一年多的甲型H1N1流感疫情目前已进入尾声，处于“大流行后时期”，世卫组织去年6月发出的对甲流疫情的最高警戒级别也同时解除。这一决定是在世界顶级医学专家对疫情进行评估后做出的。不过，陈冯富珍仍警告说，进入大流行后时期，并不意味着甲型H1N1病毒已经消失；预计H1N1病毒还会以季节性流感病毒的形式出现，并在今后若干年内继续传播，希望各国继续对此保持警惕。

The H1N1 pandemic is over and the global outbreak turned out to be much less severe than was feared just over a year ago, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

WHO director-general Margaret Chan once again rebutted criticism that the United Nations agency had hyped the first pandemic in more than 40 years, whose mildness left some Western governments holding huge stockpiles of unused vaccines.

The Hong Kong public health expert said the world had been lucky the H1N1 virus had not mutated into a more deadly form and that a safe vaccine developed in record time remained effective against it.

"We are now moving into the post-pandemic period. The new H1N1 virus has largely run its course," Chan said.

"That was the right call," she said, defending the decision taken in June last year to declare a pandemic.

The swine flu virus will continue to circulate as part of seasonal influenza for years to come, requiring health authorities to remain vigilant, she told a news conference.

It still threatens high-risk groups including pregnant women who would benefit from vaccination, she said.

Stockpiled H1N1 vaccines remain effective against the strain and so far the virus has not developed widespread resistance to the antiviral oseltamivir, the best treatment, she said.

The WHO's downgrading of the H1N1 outbreak to "post-pandemic" was based on recommendations by external influenza experts who conducted a review earlier in the day.

"I think even if we see severe outbreaks occurring in some countries -- which is still definitely possible -- that the global threat is really much lower and much different than a year ago," Keiji Fukuda, WHO's top flu expert, told reporters.