GENEVA - Health experts are looking very closely at the spread of H1N1 flu among people in Spain, Britain and Japan, a WHO official said Sunday, as Japan confirmed dozens of new cases among teenagers and shut down affected schools.
The H1N1 flu epidemic is already expected to dominate the World Health Organization's annual meeting, a five-day event that begins Monday in Geneva and involves health officials from the agency's 193 member states.
WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan is expected to reveal experts' recommendations on the production of an H1N1 flu vaccine sometime at the meeting. Pharmaceutical companies are ready to begin making such a vaccine, but many decisions have to be made first -- such as how much vaccine should be produced, how will it be distributed and who should get it.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit the agency Tuesday and meet with senior representatives from the vaccine industry, but the UN declined to say which companies.
Some experts have said there is no question that an H1N1 flu vaccine must be produced but WHO needs to discuss the issue with its members.
As of Sunday, the H1N1 flu virus has sickened at least 8,480 people in 39 countries. It has killed 75 people, most of them in Mexico.
Most people infected so far have suffered from a mild disease but experts fear the virus might mutate into a deadlier form.
WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl said in-country transmission rates were a key factor in whether the global body decides to increase its pandemic alert level. Right now, the world is at Phase 5 -- out of a possible six -- meaning that a global outbreak is "imminent."
"We already know about the UK and Spain, that they have a relatively high number of cases compared to other European countries, so by simple virtue of the fact that they have more cases they need to be kept an eye on," Hartl said in an interview with AP Television News.
"There seems to have been activity in the last few days in Japan so we need to watch that too," he said.
Spain and Britain have had the highest numbers of cases in Europe, reporting 103 and 101 cases respectively. Britain announced 14 new cases Sunday -- with 11 of those being transmitted in-country -- people who had not travelled to Mexico or the United States but became infected from others who had the virus.
Japan's Health Ministry confirmed dozens of new cases of H1N1 flu in waves of announcements Sunday, prompting the government to shut down schools and cancel events like Kobe's annual festival.
Hartl said he couldn't tell whether the rapid spread of the virus in Japan might trigger a pandemic.
"We don't want to prejudge anything, but certainly this is something we are watching with interest," he said.
If the virus starts to be transmitted from person to person on a large scale in a country outside the Americas, this could trigger a pandemic, WHO experts have said. But it would have to jump among people outside schools, hospitals and other institutions that typically pass on such viruses quickly.
WHO estimates that up to two billion doses of H1N1 flu vaccine could be produced yearly, although the first batches wouldn't be available for four to six months.
Most flu vaccine companies can only make one vaccine at a time: seasonal flu vaccine or pandemic vaccine. Production takes months and it is impossible to switch halfway through if health officials make a mistake.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on a "seed stock" to make the vaccine, which should be ready in a few weeks. Until vaccine manufacturers get the seed stock, they won't know how many doses of vaccine they can make or how long that would take.
WHO is also negotiating with vaccine producers like GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Sanofi Pasteur to save some of their H1N1 flu vaccine for poorer countries. Many rich countries -- such as Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Switzerland and the United States -- have already signed deals with vaccine makers to guarantee them pandemic vaccines.
