More severe flu pandemic ahead

A flu pandemic more severe than the H1N1 virus in 2009 could lie ahead, the British Medical Journal reports.
Health experts gathered at the UK Health Protection Agency’s Pandemic Influenza conference in London last week to assess the world’s response to the swine flu pandemic last winter.

Director of the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Infections Maria Zambon said the emergence of new pandemics was as certain in this world as “death and taxes”.
Nancy Cox, Director of the Influenza Division of the US National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she expected the H1N1 virus to change within the next year.
All of the agencies involved need to remain vigilant, Gordon Duff, Chairman of the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, added.
BMJ 2010;340:c3410