The World Health Organization tried to determine Sunday how to battle a deadly new strain of swine flu, holding teleconferences with staff and flu experts around the world as countries from New Zealand to France reported suspected cases. WHO stopped short of recommending specific measures to stop the disease, urging governments to step up their surveillance of suspicious outbreaks but leaving further decisions up to individual nations. Governments across Asia began quarantining those with symptoms of the deadly virus and some issued travel warnings for Mexico. In a second day of top-level meetings, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan and senior advisors were trying to determine what measures the agency could recommend to stop the spread of the outbreak, which she called a public health emergency of “pandemic potential” because the virus can pass from human to human. New Zealand said that 10 students who took a school trip to Mexico “likely” had swine flu. Israel said a man who had recently visited Mexico had been hospitalized while authorities try to determine whether he had swine flu. France said that two people who had returned from Mexico with fevers were being monitored. Spain's Health Ministry said three people who just returned from Mexico were under observation in hospitals. Governments must report any unusual cases of flu to WHO, and the agency was considering whether to issue nonbinding recommendations on travel and trade restrictions, and even border closures. “Countries are encouraged to do anything that they feel would be a precautionary measure,” WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said. “All countries need to enhance their monitoring.” H1N1 influenza is a subset of influenza A that is a combination of bird, pig and human viruses, according to the WHO.
