According to Radio New Zealand International, confirmed its first cases of swine flu yesterday in 'two local children that have not been overseas', which has understandably caused concern.

According to the report, Vanuatu's Director of Public Health, Len Tarivonda, says that because the two children infected have not been overseas, it suggests that the virus is spread within the community.

Mr Tarivonda says they have sent another 16 swab tests to Australia for testing this week and are considering to move from the policy of containing the virus to managing it, should they prove positive.

"With one or two cases we can cope. But say suddenly you have an influx of cases due to the fact that the health system is general is weak anyway we would have problems in managing a large number of people. If you have large numbers, then we are not prepared to cope with that sort of number."

Other countries in the region that have reported cases of the A(H1N1) flu is Fiji (2), Samoa (1), Papua New Guinea (1) and Tahiti (1).
Altogether, over 100 countries now have confirmed cases of the virus with a total of 55,867 cases worldwide, according to the latest update from the World Health Organization (WHO).