...we hope to stop the transmission in six to nine months

All experts on WHO advisory groups for developing norms, standards and guidelines are required to disclose interests regarding the advisory committee's area of work. If a declared interest is potentially significant, then the expert is either excluded from the meeting or given a restricted role.

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.

Maternal mortality health is a very sensitive indicator. All you need to look at is a country's maternal mortality rate. That is a surrogate for whether the country's health system is functioning. If it works for women, I'm sure it will work for men.

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.

The WHO is the lead agency in health in the United Nations system, and clearly we have very important functions to play.

For a pandemic of moderate severity, this is one of our greatest challenges: helping people to understand when they do not need to worry, and when they do need to seek urgent care.