Vaccines effective against a pandemic virus are not yet available.
One way to cope with those emotions is to belittle warnings of a pandemic as improbable.
While we cannot predict when or if the H5N1 virus might spark a pandemic, we cannot ignore the warning signs.
Although we estimated that the pandemic will be of moderate severity, at least in its early days, the announcement triggered a surge of interest in pandemic vaccines and a scramble to place orders.
At the same time, we cannot, we dare not, let concerns about a pandemic overshadow or interrupt other vital health programmes.
But current funding levels may not be enough to prepare 145 developing countries for a possible avian flu pandemic, not to mention other animal diseases that could emerge as threats, says Dr. Le Gall.
What about the pandemic risk?
However, our pandemic potential scale reflects the likelihood of a pandemic and not its severity.
No one will have immunity should an H5N1-like pandemic virus emerge.
It contains the whole, killed pandemic virus, not a vaccine virus with pandemic proteins, and the virus is grown in cells rather than eggs - making it safe for people with egg allergy.
Expert assistance can also be provided to governments to strengthen early warning systems, intensify early containment capacity and prepare for global hazards such as pandemic influenza.
If the innards of each pig are Petri dishes where genes are jumbled and dashed together, then possible pandemic flu viruses have been stewing on hog farms for decades.
The risk of pandemic influenza is serious.
The flu was arrested before it became a pandemic.
The virus did not mutate during the pandemic to a more lethal form.
Regulatory authorities have licensed pandemic vaccines in Australia, China and the United States of America, soon to be followed by Japan and several countries in Europe.
The appointment is critical as the world is fast recognizing the risk of an imminent human influenza pandemic, and is taking steps to reduce the risk and to get prepared.
I believe that this pandemic will be a watershed event.
The Director-General said that concerns about a pandemic should not overshadow, or interrupt other vital health programmes.
Vaccination is not without risk in itself, and pandemic flu vaccines have been associated with a rare neurological condition known as Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS).
The bird flu pandemic is well controlled.
This could be why the pandemic has spread fast but remained mild in many people, though not all.
Vietnam's Health Ministry, along with the army, police and various city agencies, staged the country's first practice for what could happen if the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus becomes more communicable among humans, and looses a pandemic that experts fear could kill millions of people.
This is, regrettably, very strongly connected with the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Was this a real pandemic or not?
WHO has been monitoring epidemiological and virological evidence from all parts of the world, including both Northern and Southern Hemispheres, to determine when the pandemic is over.
Fukuda notes a pandemic has nothing to do with the severity of the disease, but rather with its geographic spread.
VACCINATING people against swine flu may be a lot easier than anyone dared hope, as it turns out that people have an unexpected degree of immunity to the pandemic now sweeping the world.
First, let me clarify the difference between seasonal flu, avian flu, and human pandemic influenza.
She said that the world today was more vulnerable to the adverse effects of an influenza pandemic than it was in 1968, when the last pandemic began.
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