H1N1 swine flu may have vanished from the headlines but the World Health Organisation (WHO) is holding steady with its highest-level phase 6 alert that classes the illness as a pandemic as it awaits winter in the southern hemisphere.

The organisation’s emergency committee says it is premature to conclude that all parts of the world have experienced peak transmission of the potentially deadly flu.

It notes that while mixed evidence shows declining or low pandemic activity in many countries, there is new community-level transmission activity in West Africa.

The southern hemisphere winter has not yet started “and there is uncertainty whether additional generalised waves of activity might occur and the need to not undermine preparations,” WHO said in a statement.

The emergency committee will reconvene in the next few weeks.