GENEVA: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday she would not hesitate to raise the global pandemic alert to the top of the six-point scale if the new H1N1 flu is spreading globally.

"When I see more signals coming from the virus itself or the spread of the disease, including severity, I would not shy away from making a very difficult decision. I would not compromise the world people's health," Margaret Chan said.

"For Phase 5 to Phase 6 I need to satisfy myself that this is a global phenomenon," she told the WHO's annual meeting in Geneva, where Britain, Japan, and other flu-affected countries have been calling for new criteria for declaring the full alert.