S. Korea to raise Influenza A alert level to 'red'

South Korea plans to raise its national epidemic alert to the highest 'red' level to reflect the rapid spread of the Influenza A virus, the government said on Monday. The Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs has said the official announcement will be made Tuesday afternoon, and comes after experts have predicted that the number of people contracting the H1N1 virus will continue to increase in the next three to four weeks. It said that an average of 8,857 people were confirmed as having caught the flu every day last week, twice as many as the 4,420 tallied the week before. Efforts will be made to prevent people from abusing anti-viral medicine like Tamiflu that can lead to dangerous tolerance to the drug in the future, it said.