GENEVA – The World Health Organization warned Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) that the world was on the verge of an official swine flu pandemic, saying it was working to prepare countries for raising its alarm to the highest level.

"We are getting very, very close," said Keiji Fukuda, WHO assistant director-general, noting that in Australia, there was now "a great deal of activity in Victoria at the community level."

Under the WHO's guidelines, one key criteria for declaring a pandemic would be established community spread in a country outside the first region in which the disease was initially reported, in this case, outside the Americas.

The WHO has so far left its six-level pandemic alert scale unchanged at phase five, signalling that a pandemic is "imminent."

The UN health agency's guidelines had initially focused on the geographical criteria to justify a phase change. However, member states have called on the agency to take other elements, such as severity of the disease into account.

On Tuesday, Fukuda played down the role of severity, saying that "by going to phase six, what this would mean is that the spread of the virus continues and activity has become established in at least two regions in the world.

"It doesn't mean that the severity of the situation has increased," he said.

Giving an update on the swine flu situation throughout the world, Fukuda said 26,563 infections including 140 deaths have been reported to the health agency from 73 countries.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health said 23 more confirmed cases of Influenza A(H1N1) were reported, bringing the total number of infected persons to 77 since May 1.

Two more schools reported positive cases bringing the total to five. These are St. Andrew's school in Paranaque, 1 case; and Ateneo de Manila High School, 3; De La Salle University (DLSU), 15; DLSU-College of St. Benilde, 2; FEU-East Asia College, 2.

But Dr. Mario Villaverde, DoH undersecretary, emphasized that there is still no community-level transmission of the virus.

Meanwhile, the Senate also had an A (H1N1) scare after a female employee was advised to go to San Lazaro hospital to have herself tested for the virus after she complained of fever and chest and muscle pains at the Senate clinic. She had been to the US and returned last June 2.

However, tests showed she was negative for the virus.

Still, the scare prompted Senate employees to ask for a thermal scanner at the gates.