Based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations, I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5.
Margaret Chan

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.
Margaret Chan

Influenza is a serious disease. Kids die of influenza, both in Japan and the United States, and if you give a drug to people who are at risk of dying, there will be people who die who got the drug,... There is no signal the drug is doing it as opposed to the disease.
Robert Nelson

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

It is perfectly obvious that no one nor any single country can save the world from the horrors of tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and winged influenza.
Richard Reeves

Measles and TB evolved from diseases of our cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs, and smallpox possibly from a disease of camels. The Americas had very few native domesticated animal species from which humans could acquire such diseases.
Jared Diamond

My father, who had previously been a civil engineer, died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918.
James Rainwater

The avian influenza found in mainland British Columbia poses no significant threat to human health.
John Clifford