The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the current level of the H1N1 influenza pandemic alert to Phase 6 on June 11, 2009. As a direct result, all organizations should consider the immediate activation of their pandemic preparedness plans.
Phase 6, the pandemic phase, is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region, in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5 (human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region). Designation of this phase indicate that a global pandemic is under way, and the time to finalize the organization, communication and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.