who declares swine flu pandemic, page-5

Chris,

A pandemic is not a measure of how deadly a virus is. It is a measure of the spread of the virus. Specifically, it means the virus has spread across two continents.

The current strain is not that deadly but it is very easily transmitted. What this means is, it could very easily be transmitted to people or birds with H5N1 (bird flu) where it could mix with H5N1 and become lethal. In this instance you would have a strain that is both lethal and easily transmitted. The chance of this happening is actually very high. However, even if the probability of it happening is relatively low (say 20%), the impact of it happening would be disastrous and cannot be ignored.

This means the WHO have to take some action. Imagine if they did nothing and the H5N1-H1N1 mix does occur and it wipes out millions of people. I guess the discussion would revolve around WHO justifying its budget but rather why the WHO and governments didn't take preventative action.

As you are probably a stock trader think of it from this perspective. Is the right to sell socks once a crisis occurs or when their are clear signs that the crisis is imminent? Calling a pandemic now is like selling socks straight after Bear Stern's bankruptcy rather than waiting for Lehman and AIG to go bankrupt before acting.