Some scientists today predict a repeat of an avian flu pandemic.

The chronic fear of health authorities is that, by chance, another avian influenza virus will mutate and spread from person to person to spawn a global pandemic.

The influenza virus and HIV use this strategy.

It is a highly virulent influenza virus such as this that is devastating chickens in parts of Asia.

A well understood example is that of influenza viruses in wild fowl, where the virus causes infections that are hard to detect.

Similar failings have exacerbated the consequences of today's bird origin influenza epidemic in Vietnam, Thailand, and elsewhere.

The anti flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza are extremely expensive and in short supply.

NEW YORK The World Health Organization has now officially declared the H1N1 flu virus to be a global pandemic.

For example, viruses responsible for influenza pandemics are adapted to both humans and birds.

A recent New York Times editorial, for example, decried wealthy countries me first attitude toward a possible H5N1 pandemic, because t he best hope of stopping a pandemic, or at least buying time to respond, is to improve surveillance and health practices in East Africa and Asia, where one would probably begin.

Worse, Indonesia is no longer providing the WHO with timely notification of bird flu outbreaks or human cases.

But even a mild influenza virus kills a lot of people, especially those with other medical problems.

The vast majority of avian flu outbreaks in the past four years, in both humans and poultry, have occurred in Indonesia.

That influenza virus has also jumped from the chickens to those who look after them, killing some people.

At least 53 types of H5N1 bird flu viruses have appeared in chickens and people there, according to the World Health Organization.

(f) The progress reported on the work conducted by the Government of Myanmar and international humanitarian entities on HIV AIDS and avian influenza

Scientists long anticipated that an influenza virus will spread as now appears to be happening in Asia from wild birds to humans, causing a pandemic.

It's flu season.

Why not? Every plant virus, every insect virus, every marine virus.

The issues surrounding the possibility of a pandemic of the H5N1 strain of avian flu are extraordinarily complex, encompassing medicine, epidemiology, virology, and even politics and ethics.

Although ring prophylaxis might work in Minneapolis, Toronto, or Zurich, in the parts of the world where flu pandemics begin, the probability of success approaches zero.

The virus is starting to mutate.

Could it be a virus?

It's probably a virus.

It's not a virus.

Indonesia s government has accused NAMRU 2 scientists of everything from profiting from its sovereign viruses to manufacturing the H5N1 bird flu as part of an alleged biological warfare scheme.

So far, a relatively small number of human beings have died from the current strain of avian influenza, and it appears that they have all been in contact with infected birds.

Recently, the US Senate approved spending 8 billion to stockpile vaccines and other drugs to help prevent a possible bird flu epidemic.

Here we come. And that was the influenza.

I had a flu shot.

I had a flu shot.

I was vaccinated against the flu.

My pen drive has a virus.

My anti virus let a virus through.

It must be a virus.

In October 2005, a United Nations task force identified as one of the root causes of the bird flu epidemic, farming methods which crowd huge numbers of animals into small spaces.

So a nice example of this came from last year and swine flu.

I don't need a flu shot.

The nurse gave us flu shots.

Ebola virus under an electron microscope.

Now there is another virus on the way.

This virus was engineered in a lab.

And so if we can do that, then we can free up resources for buying drugs that you really do need for treating AIDS and HIV and malaria and for preventing avian flu. Thank you.

Doctors advertise the flu shot every year.

There is strong evidence from a variety of sources that forms of the bird flu virus circulating in Indonesia are more virulent than those elsewhere and that in a few cases they may have spread directly from one person to another.