"Heading Off an Influenza Pandemic"

Full Science editorial: Holmes et al. 309 (5737): 989 (Subscription required.)

"Continual news on the outbreak status of the H5N1 subtype of influenza A virus in Southeast Asia points to one of the greatest challenges facing 21st-century society: the prediction and management of disasters. Hundreds of thousands die from influenza annually, with widespread and often devastating pandemics occurring episodically. The last flu pandemic occurred in 1968. Are we better able to mitigate the effect of a new pandemic than we were 37 years ago? Advances in science, vaccine strategies, and antiviral drugs provide this potential, but whether these can be applied in the short term in an effective global policy is not guaranteed.........

"The potential for avian H5N1 to cause a global human pandemic is presently uncertain because it cannot be predicted with current data. However, if an H5N1 pandemic does not emerge in the near term, the political will to continue the global preparations necessary for a future pandemic may falter. We cannot afford such a misstep."