MANILA, 23 June 2009, 1600 hrs-With two visiting youth football teams under quarantine and the number of cases growing, the Singapore Government has raised its alert level and acknowledged that further spread of the Pandemic H1N1 2009 virus is inevitable. "We have crossed the tipping point beyond which local transmissions will grow rapidly," said Minister for Health Mr Khaw Boon Wan.

To counter this threat, the Minister said the Government was shifting its resources to detect and treat infected cases, paying particular attention to high-risk patients. A new alert level, yellow mitigation, was introduced to reflect this change in approach. Singapore reported a further 26 cases, including a cluster of nine, raising the city state's total to 168.

In New Zealand, where the number of confirmed cases grew by 45, Health Minister Mr Tony Ryall said the virus would become "very widespread" and might cause hospitals and other facilities to defer non-urgent care.

Elsewhere in the Region, Brunei Darussalam reported three more confirmed cases. One of them , an 18-year-old local male, is a relative and known contact of the first case, a 19-year-old man who returned to Brunei on 16 June after studying in the UK. The two other new cases had a history of overseas travel.

Australia, which earlier reported one of two deaths in the Western Pacific Region related to the virus, announced 297 more cases today. The other death, reported yesterday, was in the Philippines. The Philippines reported 84 cases more cases today. Japan reported 109 more, the Republic of Korea 115 and Hong Kong (China) 28.

The number of confirmed cases of Pandemic H1N1 2009 in the Western Pacific now exceeds 5540 in 17 countries and areas, up by about 500 since the last reporting date. A total of two associated deaths have been reported in the Region.

- Australia 2733

- Brunei Darussalam 4

- China 441

- Hong Kong (China) 348

- Macao (China) 5

- Taiwan (China) 32

- Fiji 2

- Japan 850

- Lao PDR 2

- Malaysia 58

- New Zealand 303

- Papua New Guinea 1

- Philippines 344

- Republic of Korea 115

- Samoa 1

- Singapore 168

- Viet Nam 52