Being watched closely for years by CDC, European experts and World Organizations. The human to human form can launch a world epidemic similar to the Spanish flu of 1918 ... or worse.

~~~

BTW The outbreak led to much greater spreading and higher costs, due to unbelievable negligence by Dutch authorities. The jobs for assistance in culling of poultry, were given to asylum seekers, whereby the Dutch IRS gave a single John Doe social security number.

The employers used the same people traveling from one province to the next, thereby spreading the virus across the Netherlands. Most sorrow was expressed by the Dutch citizens, as their home pets: beautiful and rare breed of poultry, turkeys and rare birds to the last pet, were picked up for culling!

~~~

'Sapere aude'

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=106&sid=6005204&cKey=1123859681000

Switzerland is extending a ban on birds and poultry from Asian countries to Russia and Kazakhstan in a bid to prevent the spread of avian flu.

At the same time, the Federal Health Office says it wants to build a reserve of vaccine to protect up to 100,000 people should the flu begin passing to humans.

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=106&sid=5848898

"There is no production bottleneck," Martina Rupp, a spokeswoman for Roche, told swissinfo. "We increased production significantly last year, we will do so again this year and we have fulfilled all orders to agreed timelines."

"We have however made it very clear that we cannot guarantee adequate supplies at the time of a pandemic so it's key that countries start stockpiling well in advance."

http://www.ecdc.eu.int/

And here is a statement on planning by the European Commission:

http://www.europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/wdc/2004/com2004_0201en01.pdf

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

Germany's national health authority was broken up in 1994, and the Robert-Koch-Institut was subsequently assigned responsibility for infectious diseases. Their documentation on avian flu is here.

An initial perusal reveals no contingency planning for a pandemic, only recommendations on dealing with single cases.

Looking at the map, the virus has obviously spread to areas along European bird migration routes. So I guess that means it will start appearing in European bird populations next year?

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman