The World Health Organization says it's still not ready to say whether the H1N1 flu pandemic has peaked. But it does concede that this pandemic has been less severe than previous outbreaks.
The WHO's emergency committee announced Wednesday that it's too early to declare that the worst of the pandemic was over. It promised to reconvene in a few weeks to reassess.
"The Committee advised that it was premature to conclude that all parts of the world have experienced peak transmission of the H1N1 pandemic influenza and that additional time and information was needed to provide expert advice on the status of the pandemic," read a statement from WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan following the meeting.
The 15 members of the committee, which makes confidential recommendations to Chan, deliberated for two hours Tuesday. In the end, they decided there were too many uncertainties about how the pandemic is behaving in places outside North America and Europe.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's top influenza expert, told reporters Wednesday that rising levels of infection in West Africa were still concerning the committee. They were also concerned that the winter months of the Southern Hemisphere had not yet started and whether more waves of activity might occur in that hemisphere.
"Having considered these views, the current epidemiological evidence and other relevant information, the Director-General determined that there had been no change in the pandemic phase, and decided to continue to monitor the situation and developments closely and to convene the Committee again within the next several weeks," Chan's statement read.
A decision by the WHO that the pandemic has entered a "post-peak" phase would enable health authorities across the globe to revise their emergency health arrangements, though in Canada, most doctors and hospitals have already recognized that the virus is not causing much illness at the moment.
H1N1 has been documented in 212 countries and territories and 16,226 deaths have been blamed on the virus, though that is considered an underestimation. Fukuda conceded that this pandemic has not been as severe as other recent pandemics.
"This pandemic appears to be on the less severe side of the spectrum of pandemics that we have seen in the 20th century," he told reporters.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Neil Rau says he's surprised the WHO didn't downgrade the pandemic, or at least relable it as a "mild" pandemic rather than a "moderate" one.
"It was a pandemic in that it satisfied some virus criteria for a pandemic. We also saw a phenomenon called stream-replacement, where this virus crowed out other respiratory viruses for a period of time. So there are pandemic characteristics that were satisfied by the virus. But in terms of its impact, it was somewhat of a pandemic dud," Rau told CTV News.
He added that he thinks the WHO overplayed the risk posed by this virus when it declared a pandemic in June.
"There was some very scary language used," he said, referring to Chan warning that "All of humanity is under threat during a pandemic."
"It was very strong language and I think it frightened many people inappropriately."
H1N1 and seasonal flu activity very low in Canada
While the WHO may not be ready to say that H1N1 pandemic has peaked, it peaked in Canada weeks ago. The Public Health Agency of Canada announced on Jan. 27, that the second wave of the pandemic had tapered off. Not only has H1N1 activity been down, but so has all flu activity compared to years past.
"In Canada, we have declared the end of the second wave based on a decrease in the reported rates of H1N1 infection, hospitalization and deaths," Geoffrey Matthews, spokesperson with the agency, told CTV News by email.
"Few outbreaks are being reported in schools and hospitals, fewer Canadians are visiting their doctors with flu symptoms, and sales of antivirals have decreased nationwide," Matthews wrote.
More than 45 per cent of Canadians have been immunized against the potentially deadly flu, he added. That may help stop a third wave of the H1N1 virus from emerging in Canada.
According to FluWatch, the agency's influenza activity monitoring system, indicators of flu activity in the week ending on Feb. 13 "were still considerably under the expected level for this time of the year."
Infectious diseases experts had thought the second wave of H1N1 peaked last fall, and seasonal flu strains would then take over to cause the majority of flu illnesses. They now say that doesn't appear to have happened. Flu activity of any kind is much lower this year than previous years.
Dr. Allison McGeer, a microbiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, says it's unclear why that is.
"We do know that once every 10 years, we see low to no flu activity. And the last time was the 2000-01 season," she told CTV.ca by phone.
"This is one of those years. This is a gift year."
As for why that pattern happens, McGeer said no one yet knows.
"It's one of the enduring mysteries about flu. There's a Nobel Prize there for whoever can figure that one out," she said.
