In April last year thousands of people became ill in Mexico from a mysterious virus in the space of a few weeks, and according to the initial reports the virus claimed 160 lives. It later transpired that the majority of those who fell ill had merely succumbed to panic as in reality only 69 people were infected by H1N1, out of whom only seven died, chiefly because they did not receive adequate treatment from Mexico's poorly equipped health service. 

By the time the pandemic reached the United States it had become substantially milder, and it later became clear that this was also the case in those countries where patients were able to access medicine in time, the result of which was a lower mortality rate than that caused by normal viruses. Yet, despite such indicators, WHO declared a pandemic at the beginning of last summer. 

According to a report issued by the European Council in June 2010, WHO, the biggest epidemiology network in the world maintained by 193 countries, misled the entire world and encouraged its member states to spend millions of dollars - including Hungary - because of a pathogen that caused the mildest influenza in recent years, and led to the deaths of only 18 thousand people worldwide. (In an average year more people die of influenza in Germany and France.) However, WHO has issued no apology and has continued to maintain that it followed the right course of action in every respect.

In a session of the Emergency Committee convened on Tuesday, Margaret Chan, the Director General of WHO, spoke of a "post-pandemic period", yet according to independent researchers H1N1 never became a pandemic in the first place, because the necessary criteria to define it as such were lacking.   

The virus was not new, which is borne out by the fact that it made far fewer older people ill since their body had already encountered an earlier version of it, and the virus was no more deadly than a normal seasonal influenza virus. Margaret Chan's otherwise unassailable confidence was somewhat blunted on Tuesday when she stated that "There will be many questions, and we will have clear answers for only some."

WHO's alarm turned out to be correct only in regard to the higher than average number of hemorrhagic pneumonia (which is difficult to treat) the new pathogen caused among healthy young people and pregnant women. 

Because of this experts warn pregnant women, or those planning pregnancy, to have themselves inoculated against the virus irrespective of the scandal surrounding WHO. There is no shortage of vaccines with three million available in Hungary and close to 30 percent of the population already inoculated last spring.