World Health Organization to raise pandemic level to 5

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Tuesday it awaited formal confirmation from U.S. authorities that the new swine flu virus has spread significantly between people, a sign that could indicate an "imminent" influenza pandemic.

Confirmation that infected people in two countries are spreading the new disease to their families or contacts in a sustained way would meet the WHO's criteria for declaring a phase 5 alert on its scale of 1 to 6.

The U.N. agency raised its pandemic alert level to phase 4 from phase 3 on Monday as the virus jumped to Europe.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday some people who have had contact with confirmed cases were also developing flu-like symptoms.

"We're still awaiting for a final confirmation from the U.S. authorities, but it appears that there's a number of cases in New York which appear to be human-to-human transmission," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told a news briefing.

Such secondary transmission of the virus was "probable," he later told reporters, adding: "If we have a confirmation from the United States or Canada, we could move to phase 5."

READ MORE HERE