Korea mulls raising flu alert level

From news reports



The government plans to raise its alert status for Influenza A (H1N1) to the highest level this week, mobilizing all government organizations and resources to stem the spread and casualties of the highly contagious disease, government officials said yesterday.

The government is planning to convene a national crisis assessment meeting Wednesday to discuss elevating the nation`s antiepidemic alert status to "Red," the highest in the four-stage disaster alert system which also includes Blue, Yellow and Orange, depending on its seriousness.

The plan comes after the alert status was heightened to the second highest, Orange, on July 21 as the cases of new flu infection involving community transmissions were increasing.

Under the Red alert status, the government will mull over a nationwide school closure, mobilization of military medical personnel and recommendation for travel restraint, among others.

"As the number of daily infections with H1N1 virus topped 10,000, the situation guarantees systemic countermeasures," the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs said. "It is necessary to ratchet up the alert level."



Since the first local outbreak in May, the new flu has forced the temporary closure of local schools and delayed student and public gatherings, raising the country`s death toll to 40 as of Sunday.

Seoul`s educational authorities have set guidelines on temporary school closure to prevent the rapid spread of Influenza A among young students.

According to the guidelines, which came into effect Saturday, headmasters of primary and secondary schools in Seoul can decide to suspend a class when 10 percent of its students are confirmed to be infected with the new flu or 25 percent are suspected to have contracted the virus.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said that the suspension should last up to seven days for elementary schools and five days for middle and high schools.

Reports say that over 400 schools nationwide remain closed as the new flu is highly contagious among teens.

On Tuesday, Korea launched its first round of vaccinations under a plan to inoculate 35 percent of the country`s 49 million people. The first batch of vaccinations is only for medical and quarantine staff, who are far more likely to be exposed to the virus on a daily basis and could transmit it to patients.

The rapid spread of the Influenza A virus could significantly damage the travel, tourism and restaurant industries, among others, causing the economy to contract by as much as 5.6 percent, a local think tank warned yesterday.

If the impact of the new flu continues for a second straight quarter, the country`s supply-side gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic performance, could contract by 0.4 to 0.7 percent, due to a fall in the labor supply caused by the pandemic, said a report released by the Korea Economic Research Institute.

When factored into the impact of a flu outbreak on the demand side, damage to the economy could reach 5.6 percent, the report said, noting that the spread of the new flu could reduce demand in the service sector.

The report added that the spread of the flu could cause a 5 percent decline in the global economy if it begins to spread more rapidly over the short term.

"The export-dependent Korean economy could be hit harder as it is heavily affected by any shrinkage in global demand," it said.

The Korean economy grew 2.9 percent in the third quarter from three months earlier on improving consumer spending and robust exports. Compared with a year earlier, the economy grew 0.6 percent, the first on-year expansion in one year.