The Swine flu epidemic has been all over the news this past few days and it still continously spreading across several territories. As of this writing, the World Health Organization has raised the Pandemic alert index of the new strain of Swine flu into phase 4. That is 2 steps short of declaring full pandemic in a global scale.

I am not a health authority that is why i would like to decline commenting about the virus cause, roots and characteristics as well as its treatments and preventions to avoid giving incorrect information about the virus. Nevertheless, I will give my inbouts and say regarding this fearful epidemic and how it is being regarded the world over.

A pandemic is a term used to define a case of a certain infectious disease that spreads uncontrollably through population across a certain region, most notably a continent or worldwide. Since the Swine virus has already spread to several countries, many scientist and experts have dubbed it as the new pandemic of the modern time. Some expert have also mentioned that the disease has been overdue. This is primarily because the virus has been present with us long before. And only through a longer period of being present that it was able to mutate into a new strain. A mutated new strain means it is resistant to vaccines available ( fortunately the virus reportedlly appears to be vulnerable to antiviral drugs like Tamiflu ). But it takes more than a new virus spreading among humans to make a pandemic. The virus has to be able to spread efficiently from one person to another, and transmission has to be sustained over time and geographically.

Hence the WHO has set its guidelines on how to classify a certain infectious disease by its impact and transmission. That is through a 6-phase pandemic alert more relatively known as EPR or Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response. Stage 1 refers to INTER-PANDEMIC STAGE whereas new virus is found in animals but no  reported human case.  Stage 2 is also an inter-pandemic phase but there is higher risk of human cases. Stage 3 is a PANDEMIC ALERT status wherein no or very limited human-to-human transmission. Stage 4 is another pandemic stage status but shows higher evidence of increased human-to-human transmission. Stage 5 is a PANDEMIC STATUS with evidence of significant human-to-human transmission. The 6th Stage is the highest stage alert wherein the disease is already considered Pandemic since it has a efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission. Currently the outbreak of the swine flu is on the move outside Mexico as it already dwelted its first fatality in the United States. Just as the whole world is beginning to recover slowly from the impact of the global recession, this outbreak came to add woes.

Unlike the previous outbreak cases of this 21th century like SARS and the Bird Flu, this one was elevated to the 4th Pandemic Stage by the WHO. With the way the virus behave, it was feared that it might reach higher stage in the coming days. The more recent illnesses and the reported deaths suggest that a pattern of more severe illness associated with this virus may be emerging. Most people will not have immunity to this new virus and, as it continues to spread, more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths are expected in the coming days and weeks.

We just hope and pray that like SARS and Bird Flu, it will come to past and we again can defeat this threat before it become worse and a PANDEMIC in global scale.