In a June 11, 2009 press release, Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), announced that the pandemic of H1N1 flu had been raised to emergency status. Phase 6 alert, the highest possible WHO classification (see Appendix A for WHO alert phase descriptions). The WHO press release marked the official start of the 2009 influenza pandemic (WHO, 2009) and public health officials, governments, emergency management planners and ordinary citizens may have feared that the world faces a possible catastrophic event. It's only September 10th. 2010, the WHO declared that the H1N1 influenza pandemic was downgraded to the post-pandemic alert phase (WHO, 2010a). However, just because the WHO declared the end of the 2009-2010 flu pandemic does not mean that the H1N1 virus (commonly known as swine flu) has been eradicated: the virus is still present. Estimates at the end of the flu season in the spring and summer of 2010 placed the number of deaths from H1N1 influenza worldwide between 12,240 (CDC, 2010) and 18,097 (WHO, 2010b). Although fewer than 20,000 deaths from H1N1 in just one flu season is not insignificant, nor is the estimate of 26,000 deaths per year from "seasonal flu" (CDC, 2011), these The numbers do not match the millions of deaths typically associated with an influenza pandemic and they do not represent the numbers used when planning and discussing the next pandemic. These figures also do not represent all the consequences of the 2009 flu pandemic; millions of people have been diagnosed, treated and survived the H1N1 virus, as will undoubtedly be the case during the next influenza pandemic. The range given by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention for the total number of cases in the United States between April 2009 and March 201...... middle of document ......iage in the event of an influenza pandemic. PhiSci Archives, University of Pittsburgh. Accessed 02/19/2012http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/4208/Thompson, AK, Faith, K., Gibson, JL and Upshur, R. (2006). Preparing for an influenza pandemic: an ethical framework to guide decision-making. BioMed Central. 7(12),DOI: 10.1186/1472-6939-7-12World Health Organization (WHO). (2009). The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. Accessed 02/19/2012 http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2009/h1n1_pandemic_phase6_20090611/en/World Health Organization. (2010a). H1N1 in the post-pandemic period. Accessed 02/19/2012http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2010/h1n1_vpc_20100810/en/index.htmlWorld Health Organization. (2010b). Weekly update - Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 101. Accessed 02/19/2012 http://www.who.int/csr/don/2010_05_21/en/index.html