The more I find out about an influenza pandemic and the lack of readiness, the more I am concerned. But I am more hopeful about the scope for international cooperation.

H5N1 is causing a massive epidemic of lethal avian influenza.

We must still maintain utmost vigilance for and preparations for the next human influenza pandemic.

We are concerned that the virus infects a human that already has contracted a strain of normal influenza and this influenza will mix with this avian form. As a result, a new strain could be formed that the human immune system has never seen before and that would ignite a pandemic.

Sometimes, we don't know that we are ready until someone tells us we are

A young wolfhound must meet his first wolf someday, but if the wolf sees him as a puppy, if he acts the puppy, the wolf will surely kill him. The wolfhound must be a wolfhound in the wolf's eyes even more than in his own, if he is to survive.