The international community should treat this as a window of opportunity to ramp up preparedness and response.

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.

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

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

Some experts say we are moving back to the pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of new replacement antibiotics, the pipeline is virtually dry. A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child's scratched knee could once again kill.

Many diseases including malaria, dengue, meningitis - just a few examples - these are what we call climate-sensitive diseases, because such climate dimensions for rainfall, humidity and temperature would influence the epidemics, the outbreaks, either directly influencing the parasites or the mosquitoes that carry them.

For the first time in history, we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real-time... Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour.