WHO cops to over blowing the swine flu

We blundered over swine flu, admit health chiefs

Global health chiefs have finally admitted that they may have overreacted to the swine flu 'pandemic' - landing governments with millions of unused vaccines.

The World Health Organisation has conceded that it may have been guilty of failing to communicate 'uncertainties' about how virulent the new virus was.

Critics say the UN agency was too quick to designate the influenza a pandemic in June after it spread from Mexico.

Keiji Fukuda, its top influenza expert, yesterday admitted a six-phase system for declaring this was confusing and the bug was not actually as deadly as bird flu.

'The reality is there is a huge amount of uncertainty (in a pandemic),' he said.