With all the recent worldwide discussion and news stories on swine flu, known as H1N1, it is important to know if these recent events will have an impact on the upcoming 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup.

FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke recently stated to the media that “we are monitoring the situation and we hope it will be under control before the seven teams begin moving from their countries to South Africa for the Confederations Cup”. He went on to add: “We will cancel only if we feel that we have to. If there are no risks and if we have all the necessary assurances, the competition will go ahead”.

 Not wanting to underplay FIFA’s take on any possible threat from swine flu, he reiterated that they do take it seriously, so seriously in fact that the CONCACAF tournament in Mexico (where the outbreak is thought to have originated) was cancelled.

Proof of FIFA’s commitment to awareness of possible outbreaks can be further seen in them moving the 2003 Women’s World Cup from China to the United States due to the SARS outbreak at the time. In addition to this, last week FIFA cancelled the Confederations of North and Central Americas and the Caribbean Association Football under-17 tournament in Mexico.

Four countries that will be playing in the Confederations Cup, namely Spain, New Zealand, Brazil and the United States of America, have reported cases of H1N1.

Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, stated that, “At this point, we have no indication that we are facing a situation similar to that seen in 1918. As I must stress repeatedly, this situation can change, not because we are overestimating or underestimating the situation, but simply because influenza viruses are constantly changing in unpredictable ways”.

In South Africa, both the government and the 2010 FIFA World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) are watching international developments closely.

Lucille Blumberg from the NICD said in a statement on Thursday that there were no laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in South Africa.

This week a man presented himself to a Cape Town Medi-Clinic with concerns about possibly picking up swine flu after a recent trip to Argentina. It turns out he had regular run of the mill seasonal flu, which is something we can all relate to now during the change of seasons.

Fidel Hadebe, spokesperson for the national Department of Health, said the government had put major plans in place, including medication, response teams and infrastructure to assist in case of a local outbreak.

To help airport officials in detecting possibly infected persons entering the country thermal scanners are being installed in South Africa’s three major airports, allowing officials to detect individuals with a raised body temperature – one of the first signs of fever. In addition to this, international travellers arriving in South Africa will be given compulsory medical questionnaires, isolation wards are being set up in most major hospitals, and a hotline for clinicians is being established.

Countries playing in the tournament have the right to bar their teams from travelling to South Africa for the Confederations Cup, which runs from June 14 to 28. So far though, it is reasonably safe to assume that it will not come to that.