Swine flu pandemic plans stepped up as US investigates deaths.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

The World Health Organisation today called on all governments to prepare for a swine flu pandemic and warned that if the -disease took hold across the globe it could prove a disaster for the world's -poorest countries.

The call came as New York's health commissioner said "many hundreds" of children were reported to have fallen sick with suspected swine flu.

The possible infection of large numbers of children in the city could be evidence of human-to-human transmission of the disease outside the source of the -epidemic, Mexico. A group of children from a New York school who visited the country recently may have spread the illness to other children since their return.

Tonight Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, …