The expanding geographic range of H5N1-infected birds sharply increased opportunities for human exposure, and influenza experts warned that each additional human case increased the opportunity for the virus to transform itself into a strain capable of being spread easily among humans and setting off a pandemic.
Influenza experts have consistently warned that pandemic influenza is inevitable.
"Such an occurrence has the potential to produce a new, pandemic influenza strain," the World Health Organization warned Wednesday.
Several respondents also mentioned that they would have liked to have been warned that influenza was in the area, that children at school were sick, and that schools might be closed as a response to illnesses.
Dr. Malik Peiris, a co-discoverer of SARS who is the director of the center for influenza research at Hong Kong University, warned in a speech on Tuesday that while SARS faded away after a year, with 8,445 cases and 790 deaths worldwide, two other coronaviruses had jumped from animals to people in the past two centuries and become endemic.
Drawing from these experiences, others have warned that an influenza pandemic will impose similar foreseeable risks to physicians and other healthcare workers [ 40].
Flu experts have warned that if the virus develops the capacity to pass readily from person to person, it could cause a global influenza pandemic.
Because influenza outbreaks are notoriously unpredictable, the health officials warned that the flu season could get worse, particularly if holiday travelers transmit the virus at airports and bus and train stations.
Doctors warned of outbreaks of influenza, diarrhea and other life-threatening conditions.
Any plan to cut back on farm inspections for avian flu is controversial since last week the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation FAOO) warned that Germany, the Netherlands and the UK had confirmed that the avian influenza virus strain H5N8 had been found in poultry farms.
