"While we still have a window of opportunity, we must do everything we can to avert an influenza pandemic, as we simultaneously prepare for a worse-case scenario," says Shigeru Omi, the WHO`s regional director for the Western Pacific.
Shigeru Omi spoke at a health conference in Noumea, New Caledonia, where over 100 health officials, including various health ministers, attended. The conference was centered on finding ways to stop the bird flu, and other diseases from becoming global problems.
"Avian influenza and the earlier outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) are not the only emerging diseases we can expect to confront in this new century," Omi says.
However, according to Omi and other health officials, the bird flu virus has not become efficient at spreading effectively from person to person; yet a report in the Oct. 1 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases
