Africa: Regional Bodies, Governments Gear Up H1N1 Influenza Response

Dakar — The World Health Organization's (WHO) Africa regional office has created a crisis management team to monitor the spread of influenza A/H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, as WHO raised the global influenza pandemic alert level to phase 5 - just short of a full pandemic.

In West Africa regional organisations and governments are diffusing flu prevention information and gearing up to cope in case of an outbreak. No case of the influenza A/H1N1 virus has been detected in the region to date.

Many countries are adapting contingency plans they had in place for H5N1, or avian flu.

At least two West African governments have banned pork imports in reaction to the H1N1 outbreak, while one is informing people that there is no threat from pork; WHO has said influenza viruses are not known to be transmissible to people through eating processed pork or other food products derived from pigs.

Benin

The government has created an inter-ministerial crisis committee which to date has begun screening all arriving and departing passengers at airports, regardless of origin or destination. Government is distributing masks at the airport. The inter-ministerial committee is informing the public that it is safe to eat pork. The country has 5,000 doses of Tamiflu; Benin would need at least three times that in the case of a pandemic, according to Onoré Djogbe, head of epidemiology in Health Ministry's sanitation office.