The W H O is Director general Margaret Chan announced that almost 30,000 confirmed cases have been reported in 74 countries on five continents.

We are in the earliest days off the pandemic.

The virus is spreading under a close and careful watch.

No previous pandemics has bean detected so early or watched so closely in real time, right at the very beginning.

So what happens now?

Dr Chan says thehe facial declaration of the pandemic means drug manufacturers will speed up development of a vaccine, although one is not expected to be available before September.

Until then, Dr Keiji Fukuda, the W.

H.

O is telling countries to maintain vigilance.

At some point it will become established in most of the countries around the world, which means that there will be a lot of people who will have gotten infected over the next one or two years and then we'll begin to see immunity buildup in the population.

The decision to raise the virus to the highest pandemic level came after a surge of cases in Australia as well as in some other countries.

15 new cases have been reported in the Philippines, and China is bracing for an increase in its cases.

On Thursday, health officials in Hong Kong closed elementary schools for two weeks after a least a dozen Children were diagnosed with the H one N one swine flu.

The pandemic is believed to have begun in Mexico in April.

Dr.

Chan says Mexico now appears to be stable, but she did not rule out further waves of infections in that country and in the Southern Hemisphere as the seasonal influenza begins there.

The virus rice, the roofs and this one, like all influence of viruses, can change the rules without rhyme or reason at any time.

And experts say they are concerned that as the virus passes through populations, it could become more severe.