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World Health Organization pandemic flu alert level: Secretary of State's statement to the House of Commons, 12 June 2009

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the A(H1N1) virus, commonly known as swine flu.

Yesterday evening, the World Health Organization raised its Pandemic Alert status to Phase 6. The criteria for making this declaration are based on the geographic spread of the virus and not its severity.

There is now clear evidence of sustained community transmission in countries outside North America, which means that we are now facing the first pandemic for more than 40 years.

Across the world, nearly 30,000 cases have been confirmed in 74 different countries.  As of today there have been 909 confirmed cases in the UK.  There have been 144 reported deaths in six countries, but none in the UK.
 
Yesterday’s announcement means that it is even more important that the global community works together to limit the impact of Swine Flu.

Over the last few years the UK has supported the UN system, including the World Health Organization in pandemic preparedness and response capacity.

We will continue to support the World Health Organisation and its partners in the crucial months that lie ahead.

In response to this particular outbreak we have also now set aside a further £6m in additional help for the international response.

The WHO declaration doesn’t, of itself, trigger any material change in our domestic preparations, which have been underway for several weeks now and are at an advanced stage.

The Department of Health is continuing to work with other government departments, health protection officers and other healthcare professionals to slow the spread of the virus.

This includes our strategy of giving anti-viral drugs for the treatment of those with symptoms, and prophylactically to those who have been potentially exposed to the virus, and where appropriate closing affected schools.

As our knowledge about the virus has increased we have been able to refine our strategy to be in line with the best public health assessments. 

At discussions at the Civil Contingencies Committee this week we were able to update our strategy to respond to the latest advice.  This includes the use of clinical diagnosis rather than laboratory testing alone where there is a high probability that cases are positive, and more targeted use of antiviral prophylaxis. This is where antivirals are provided to those on a preventative basis to contacts considered most at risk of contracting the virus.  In practice that will be mainly household or household-like contacts, or, in a school context, those for example at surrounding desks.

We have been monitoring our domestic response continually and the formal declaration of a pandemic  shouldn’t affect people’s day-to-day business, and it does not affect our assessment of how the virus is behaving in this country.

It’s important to stress that the majority of cases in the UK so far have not been severe, with those catching the virus making a full and fast recovery – though a small minority of cases have been more serious.

As I said earlier Madame Deputy Speaker, the Health Protection Agency reported 909 confirmed cases of swine flu in the UK.  28 people are known to have been hospitalised, and the majority have already made a full recovery. Nearly all of these people had previous underlying conditions.

We now have enough antivirals to treat half the UK population, with orders to increase that to 80%.

We also have orders for 226 million facemasks, 34 million respirators and 15.2 million courses of antibiotics will be delivered within months.

And the free Swine Flu information line, along with the nation-wide leaflet, TV and advertising campaign, has kept the general public well-informed about the steps they can take to protect themselves and limit spread.

However, we recognised from the outset that we would be unlikely to prevent a widespread outbreak indefinitely.

In recent days, there have been significant increases in the daily number of cases in certain parts of the UK, most notably Scotland, where Health Protection Scotland has concluded that sustained community transmission appears to be taking place.  This is characterised by an increased number of sporadic cases; that is cases with no identifiable link with other confirmed cases.

These increases come as no surprise and are in line with what we know from similar outbreaks.

But it remains the case that, at some point, we will need to move our focus away from limiting the spread of a localised virus, towards mitigating the effects of a widespread virus.

I want to be clear  Madame Deputy Speaker: that point has not been reached yet. But we continue to monitor the situation carefully, and any decision to move to mitigation will be based on the best public health, clinical and scientific advice.

There is always a careful balance to be struck between benefit and risk when offering any drugs to healthy people. The extra knowledge we’ve gained during the last six weeks of containment means that we can now refine our approach.

The Health Protection Agency will be using all their expertise and clinical judgement to look even more carefully at the circumstances behind local outbreaks before deciding who should be given anti-virals.

The single most effective way to limit the impact of any future epidemic is the successful development and distribution of a vaccine.

Significant progress has already been made, including the identification of virus prototypes which are so important in the production of the vaccine. 

The declaration of Phase 6 is highly significant because it means that manufacturers will now be expected to meet the contractual obligations of advance purchase agreements for vaccine that countries, including ourselves, had already agreed in the event of Phase 6 being declared.

We are already speaking with manufacturers to agree what this means for our own plans for full country coverage of pandemic-specific vaccine, should this be required.  We have advance purchase agreements which enable the UK to purchase up to 132 million doses of pandemic-specific vaccine; enough for two doses for 100% of the population, should this be necessary.  On current projections we expect the first deliveries of the pandemic vaccine to arrive in the Autumn.

Current indications are that seasonal flu vaccine production is well advanced and is expected to be completed in the next few weeks with the requested UK quantities being delivered at the usual time. The WHO do not expect switching to pandemic flu vaccine production to have an impact on seasonal flu vaccine production.

The final important thing to stress is that people should continue to follow our advice on good hand hygiene, and the “catch it, bin it, kill it” messages.

Cover your nose and mouth with tissues when you cough and sneeze, throw the tissue away, and wash your hands.

People who have flu like symptoms shouldn’t panic, but stay at home and check their symptoms using the online symptom checker or the swine flu information line. If people are still concerned they should call their GP or NHS Direct.

Mr Speaker, the WHO’s announcement is an important signal that all countries should now ready themselves to deal with increased flu cases.

The UK has been preparing for this for years. We’re recognised by the WHO as the one of the best prepared in the world, so we are in a very strong position to respond to the global pandemic we now face.

I commend this statement to the House.