Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The World Health Organization in Geneva has decided to stop issuing its global tallies of A/H1N1 flu cases, noting that “at this point, further spread of the pandemic, within affected countries and to new countries, is considered inevitable.” Newly affected countries are still required to confirm all new cases and “as far as feasible, provide weekly aggregated case numbers and descriptive epidemiology of the early cases.

Reporting requirements are being relaxed for countries with “community-wide” transmission of the virus but all countries are being asked to remain vigilant in monitoring the virological characteristics of the pandemic virus.

The WHO change takes into account both the mild characteristics of the flu in the vast majority of patients, but also that, when there are large, rapidly growing numbers of cases, it can be exremely difficult for countries to confirm them through lab testing.

The A/H1N1 flu has spread far faster than any previous pandemic, the WHO notes: it took less than six weeks for it to spread as widely as past influenza viruses have spread in six months.

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