What is the dialogue about the pandemic in the infectious disease community?
There is a lot of concern about pandemic influenza. It is the single most known threat that we face from infectious diseases currently, so the attention that its been getting over the last couple of years is certainly warranted. Why is it the single greatest known threat? Influenza is highly contagious compared to any other infectious diseases, and it can be lethal in some instances due to the properties of the virus or to the condition of the host. ^TOP If human-to-human transmission is documented in Asia, what do you do when you get the call; what does your job become? We would initially find out about human-to-human transmission from newspaper reports that we monitor using a system called GPHIN – Global Public Health Intelligence Network. Those reports would lead to counties investigating the problem and reporting to the WHO, who would then officially report to all its member nations that the phase of pandemic preparedness had changed – that there was sustained human-to-human transm
