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Recommendations to avoid travel to Mexico, or to any other country or area with confirmed cases of A/H1N1 influenza, serve no purpose, Dr Margaret Chan Director-General of the World Health Organization said.

It is said that they do not protect the public, they do not contain the outbreak, and they do not prevent further international spread.

“We are in phase 6 – that is, we are in the early days of the 2009 influenza pandemic. As we see today, with well over 100 countries reporting cases, once a fully fit pandemic virus emerges, its further international spread is unstoppable,” she said.

Influenza pandemics are remarkable events because they spread throughout a world population that is either largely or entirely susceptible to infection. They tend to hit a given area in the epidemiological equivalent of a tidal wave.