World Not Set To Deal With Flu

Washington Post article:

"Public health officials preparing to battle what they view as an inevitable influenza pandemic say the world lacks the medical weapons to fight the disease effectively, and will not have them anytime soon.

"Public health specialists and manufacturers are working frantically to develop vaccines, drugs, strategies for quarantining and treating the ill, and plans for international cooperation, but these efforts will take years. Meanwhile, the most dangerous strain of influenza to appear in decades -- the H5N1 'bird flu' in Asia -- is showing up in new populations of birds, and occasionally people, almost by the month, global health officials say."

Moreover, there are other strains of flu viruse circulating that have the potential to cause a pandemic, and the work being done on the H5N1 strain might not apply when the epidemic begins.