The unique strain of swine influenza suspected of killing nearly 150 people in Mexico and spreading rapidly to other countries is of "the most serious concern" to the international community, including the United Nations, UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon told reporters on Monday.

"We are concerned that this virus could cause a new influenza pandemic," he said in a statement read to the press here. "It could be mild, in its effects, or potentially severe."

The new strain, a subtype of A/H1N1, has not been previously detected in swine or humans before. With little or no resistance from the human immune system, the strain has the ability to aggressively attack the body and become deadly.

Ban said he had been in contact with World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan who recently activated the Strategic Operations Center which includes convening the Emergency Committee.

The Committee will be meeting this afternoon in Geneva to discuss whether to raise the pandemic alert from level 3 to level 4 or 5, which would signal that the animal virus is increasingly becoming adept at spreading between humans.

Ban said that the international community needed to "demonstrate global solidarity" as "no nation can deal with threat of such dimension on its own."

After already being hit hard by other crises this year, such as food, energy, climate change and financial, "poorer nations are especially vulnerable," said Ban. "The World Bank and other UN development and humanitarian agencies will therefore mobilize to ensure that countries needing additional financial resources to combat an epidemic will have them."

In Mexico, there have been 1,614 suspected cases of swine flu, including as many as 149 deaths. Ban noted that the deaths in Mexico were of particular concern because those who died were "young and healthy adults."

On Monday, the WHO said there were 40 confirmed cases of the swine flu across several states in the US -- California 7 cases, Kansas 2 cases, New York City 28 cases, Ohio 1 case, and Texas 2 cases. No deaths have been reported.

US President Barack Obama said Monday the threat of spreading swine flue infections was cause for concern but "not a cause for alarm," as the US stepped up border monitoring.

Suspected or confirmed cases of swine flu were also reported in Canada, New Zealand, Israel, France and Brazil.

On Monday, the European Commission said it wants EU health ministers to convene as soon as possible to look at the dangers of the disease spreading to Europe. The details of such a meeting have to be worked out by the Czech Republic, which holds the EU presidency.

People usually get swine influenza from infected pigs, however, human-to-human transmission has occurred in some instances. While health authorities have said it is safe to eat pork products cooked at temperatures of 70 Celsius, China, Russia and Ukraine banned imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three US states which reported outbreaks.

There are no vaccines that contain the current swine influenza virus causing illness in humans; however, the viruses so far characterized have been sensitive to prescription antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir, but resistant to both amantadine and rimantadine.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2009)