This website is intended for Solvay stakeholders* and provides general information on both seasonal and pandemic influenza with practical guidance on what people can do to help protect themselves. 
 
Influenza (flu) is an infection of the lungs and upper airways caused by a virus.  An ordinary, or ‘seasonal’, influenza outbreak will affect about 1 in every 10 people.  In a pandemic many more people may become ill because the virus is a new strain to which people have little or no immunity and this allows pandemic influenza to spread quickly across large regions such as a continent, or even worldwide.
 
The threat of a new pandemic developing has long been recognised.  

Influenza makes people feel really ill for several days and disrupts family and work life.  Most people recover in a week or two but if complications such as pneumonia arise in vulnerable people influenza can result in very serious illness or death.  As a result all influenza outbreaks are taken seriously and millions of people vulnerable to influenza complications are protected by vaccination each year.
 
Influenza viruses change quickly and often so a new type of virus, such as influenza A (H1N1), also called ‘swine influenza’ or ‘Mexican flu’, causes concern but is not unexpected. The World Health Organisation (WHO) routinely monitors influenza viruses and outbreaks very closely and helps governments around the world prepare to manage a pandemic where large numbers of people would be affected. 
 
WHO uses a 6 phase pandemic alert scale to provide authoritative guidance on the seriousness of the threat and the level of pandemic preparations that are needed. On 11.6.09, WHO raised the level of alert to Phase 6 indicating there had been community level outbreaks of influenza A(H1N1) in more than one region. The world was at the start of an influenza pandemic. The pandemic subsequently spread quickly around the world and has turned out to be much more fortunate then what we feared. On 10.8.2010, the world is no longer in phase 6. We are moving into the post-pandemic period.

* Stakeholders include employees and subcontractors, customers and suppliers, shareholders, local communities and society at large