If the rumor had not been reported to be incorrect publicly after the verification process, health authorities may have heightened avian influenza surveillance to include the investigation of persons with symptoms of influenza and a history of contact with pigs.
Avian influenza's spread and fears about pandemic influenza heightened this perceived inequity; experts argued that developing countries would have little access to vaccine for pandemic influenza without major changes in global vaccine production (4, 5 ).
In these studies, it remained unclear whether the higher pandemic and post-pandemic incidence in children was caused by higher influenza activity, heightened physician awareness, more frequent or more sensitive influenza testing, or a more severe course of disease of A(H1N1 pdm09 [ 18].
The spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) and the documented illness and deaths of >300 persons in >12 countries (7 ) has heightened concerns that an influenza pandemic may be imminent.
The recent outbreak of pandemic H1N1 influenza has heightened the need to improve vaccine responses.
Concern about the lack of paid sick leave was heightened during the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that workers remain at home if they were sick with flu-like symptoms to control the spread of infection [ 4], and emergency legislation guaranteeing temporary sick leave was introduced in the House of Representatives [ 5].
The ongoing pandemic of 2009 H1N1 swine-origin influenza A has heightened the world's attention to the reality of influenza pandemics and their unpredictable nature.
Awareness of bidirectional zoonotic transmission of influenza virus A between pigs and humans was heightened by the emergence of the influenza A(H1N1 pdm09 virus, which resulted in an influenza pandemic among humans starting in 2009.
The need for effective anti influenza drugs has been heightened by the emergence of highly pathogenic, H5N1 influenza A infection that characteristically causes a severe, rapidly progressive pneumonitis with a mortality rate of between 60 to 80%.[1], [2], [3], [4], [5] Fear of a possible H5N1 pandemic has prompted many countries to stockpile oseltamivir.
The possibility of an imminent influenza pandemic has been heightened by the appearance and spread of avian influenza A (H5N1), which has a case-fatality ratio of >50% (3 ).
