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MANILA, Philippines -- The US? response to the Influenza A-H1N1 virus in the coming weeks would be a factor in how countries like the Philippines could be affected by a second wave of the novel virus expected from now until June 2010, a top health official said on Saturday.
Dr. Eric Tayag, director of the National Epidemiology Center, said that the US and other countries in the temperate zones of the northern hemisphere have been moving into their influenza season with the onset of winter.
Tayag said US President Barrack Obama?s declaration of a state of emergency in connection with the H1N1 flu virus was just a preemptive response meant to prevent a new wave of cases during the winter?s spike in flu cases. It was in no way connected with another sudden increase in the number of confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu virus, he said.
?If their vaccines fail to stop the virus, (the new wave) could reach countries like the Philippines,? Tayag told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Tayag said foreigners who would come to the Philippines and other tropical countries to escape the winter cold could bring in a second wave of the virus in November until the rainy season in 2010, the start of the country?s own influenza season.
?That is what we are closely watching,? Tayag said.
But Tayag said there has been no spike in the number of confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu virus in the Philippines over the past weeks despite continued monitoring by the Department of Health.
Tayag, however, said that the exact figures were not immediately available.
