The WHO declares the Swine Flu Epidemic is Officially Over

Here is the official press release from the WHO

GENEVA —  The World Health Organization declared the swine flu pandemic officially over Tuesday, months after many national authorities started canceling vaccine orders and shutting down hot lines as the disease ebbed from the headlines.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said the organization’s emergency committee of top flu experts advised her that the pandemic had “largely run its course” and the world is no longer in phase six — the highest influenza alert level.

“I fully agree with the committee’s advice,” Chan told reporters in a telephone briefing from her native Hong Kong.

The virus has now entered the “post-pandemic” phase, meaning disease activity around the world has returned to levels usually seen for seasonal influenza, she said.

But Chan cautioned against complacency, saying that even though hospitalizations and deaths have dropped sharply, countries should still keep a watchful eye for unusual patterns of infection and mutations that might render existing vaccines and antiviral drugs ineffective.

“It is likely that the virus will continue to cause serious disease in younger age groups,” she said, urging high-risk groups such as pregnant women to continue seeking vaccination.

Swine Flu? Rings a bell somehow.

Oh yeah, now I remember……the swine flu. That was supposed to be the next flu pandemic, and it dominated headlines for the better part of a year. We stockpiled vaccines, and avoided the general public so we wouldn’t be infected. After all, not only would the swine flu cause instant death, but it would also cause you to grow a long snout and live in filth as well.

According to the World Health Organization, it is not a threat anymore

Was it ever really a threat, or is this just another crisis in the constant stream of planetary killers that the media is so kind as to impose upon us?

The final tally is that nearly 20,000 people died as the result of the H1N1 virus, which is an afterthought when compared to the nearly 200,000 worldwide who die as a result of the flu each and every year. So you may ask yourself, “What the hell was all of the hand wringing all about”?

I hate to say it, but a good crisis attracts eyeballs to television shows, and readers to the daily papers, so I am of the opinion that the media has never seen a crisis that it didn’t enjoy. And better yet, if there isn’t a real crisis for the media to whip up into a frenzy, then why don’t we just make one up?

Wasn’t the Swine Flu George Bush’s Doing?

Actually, I may know just what happened. Since George W. Bush caused global warming, Hurricane Katrina, and the 9/11 attacks, maybe the swine flu was just another one of his clever ruses. I am positive that Bush created the swine flu, and it was only due to the fact that he left office that spared our world from a tremendous catastrophe!

Tags: flu pandemic, swine flu, WHO

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 at 2:12 am and is filed under Syndicated News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.