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As the world braces itself for a swine flu pandemic, Indonesian health authorities are scrambling to protect the country from the highly infectious disease. The World Health Organization has declared a pandemic following the growing number of cases around the globe.

WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan said on Thursday that the organization had decided to raise the pandemic warning level from 5 to 6, its highest possible alert, after holding an emergency meeting with flu experts. This is the first global flu pandemic in 41 years, after the outbreak of the H3N2 viral strain in 1968, which originated in Hong Kong and killed up to two million people.

As Chan noted, flu pandemics can spread at lightning speed and randomly. They are no set patterns for how a virus spreads from person to person, and in today’s globalized world, with air travel, it takes only a matter of hours for the disease to move from one part of the globe to another.

While there have been no reported cases of H1N1 influenza in Indonesia, the health authorities should not be complacent. Though the country is busy enough fighting the effects of other viruses — and this year there have been a particularly high number of dengue cases — the threat of an H1N1 pandemic must still be treated seriously.

The Ministry of Health has sent out circulars to all governors instructing them to tighten monitoring and prevention procedures. The ministry has also met with 600 heads of health agencies from across the country to explain the programs that have to be put in place in case the virus does make it to our shores.

Given the fact that Indonesia is an archipelago, there are hundreds of entry points, and it is nearly impossible to track the movement of all people across the country.

No country can ever be fully prepared for a pandemic, but it would be a catastrophe if our health and transportation authorities treated this latest outbreak lightly. We welcome the placement of scanners to screen people at all airports and seaports, but we hope that the scanners are in proper working order.

Hospitals must also take precautions and be prepared to handle patients displaying symptoms of the disease. Such patients must be immediately quarantined and given emergency care. To date, the H1N1 strain has not showed itself to be as deadly as the earlier bird flu virus, which killed 80 percent of those infected, but we cannot afford to take chances.

Thankfully the world’s health authorities have learned from previous outbreaks and are much more prepared to deal with this latest episode. As Chan noted in her statement, the virus is spreading under careful and close watch and the world has had a head start in tackling the pandemic.

Indonesia must hope that the H1N1 flu outbreak is contained while still in its early stages. But it won’t hurt us to prepare for the worse.