This week delegates gather for the International Ministerial Conference on Animal and Pandemic Influenza in Hanoi, Vietnam. The past year has seen the H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic sweep the world and avian influenza remains endemic in a number of countries, particularly in Asia. Fortunately neither has resulted in the ‘big one’: a pandemic on a scale and intensity which results in massive human mortality, but this is no argument for complacency. Pandemic threats – from influenza or from other sources – remain as present as ever. Building our resilience to emerging infectious disease impacts, particularly in places where they are most likely to arise, must remain top of global health security priorities.

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