Geneva is a city where the living conditions and hospitality provided by both the population and authorities of Geneva - at all levels - are exemplary and greatly facilitate the work and daily life of WHO employees.

New diseases like SARS and bird flu cause anxiety in the community. People get worried, some to the extent that it even affects their health. You feel very sad, and yet you must carry on and maintain your cool in very trying and difficult moments. You have to tough it out.

A health system that lacks commodities for managing high-mortality infectious diseases and the main killers of mothers and young children will not have an adequate impact. By the same token, even the best-stocked delivery system will have an inadequate impact if it fails to reach the poor.

The unique nature about the influenza virus is its great potential for changes, for mutation.

We should never forget the government should be held accountable for providing services.

Pandemic influenza is by nature an international issue; it requires an international solution.

Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units.