The challenge of an illness such as influenza is that it is not restricted to any particular population--anyone can catch the flu. Medical researchers know that a virulent virus can have a devastating effect on the world's population. While statistical reports from the Spanish flu that spread in 1918 are not considered fully accurate, they found that 50 percent of people came down with some form of the illness, and from 20 to 100 million people were killed worldwide. This is more than double the number killed in World War II. For this reason, world medical leaders take the threat of influenza very seriously.

The ideal for controlling an influenza virus such as H5N1 would have been to step in to control the disease before it became so well established in the bird or animal population. For example, this would involve eliminating the virus in domestic poultry overseas (vaccinate the birds or eliminate them before the virus spread to migratory birds) before it could mutate into a strain that passes among people. Early detection and rapid response to bird flu on a global scale could drastically cut the costs of dealing with a fullblown human pandemic.

Because epidemiologists fear that the avian virus is now widespread enough to eventually make the transition to becoming an illness that can spread from human to human, scientists are working on the next stage of planning for a possible outbreak. The two avenues to fight a virus are vaccinations (the better option) and antiviral medications. Neither method is simple or foolproof.

Despite the number of years that scientists have understood how to make vaccines, vaccines are not easy to create. Each year, the makers of seasonal flu vaccines have to take an educated guess as to exactly which flu they think will be circling the globe the following winter. Existing vaccines are powerless against new strains, so scientists must try to anticipate any mutations of the virus so that any vaccine created will fight the right bug. In summer 2009, the pharmaceutical companies were rushing a vaccine into production that is supposed to be effective against the H1N1 virus that is anticipated to continue to spread throughout the world. . .

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