90 years after Australian scientists began their race to stop the spread of Spanish flu in Australia, University of Melbourne researchers are hoping records from the 1918 epidemic may hold the key to preventing future deadly pandemic outbreaks

GPs are not an integral part of Australian influenza planning, despite the important role they will play in limiting deaths in the event of a pandemic hitting the country, according to research from The Australian National University.

MIT researchers have uncovered a critical difference between flu viruses that infect birds and humans, a discovery that could help scientists monitor the evolution of avian flu strains and aid in the development of vaccines against a deadly flu pandemic.

Determining the structure of a protein called hemagglutinin on the surface of influenza B is giving researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University in Houston clues as to what kinds of mutations could spark the next flu pandemic.

A report to be published in an upcoming issue of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Bulletin will call for urgent attention to the politically sensitive issue of border control, and the need for coherent and robust national plans in the face of a catastrophic flu pandemic.

Scientists studying the potential spread of a flu pandemic must be careful to distinguish the different rates of infection among different groups, including the sociable and the shy, those most susceptible to infection and those less so, according to a new study in the "O.R. Forum" section of Operations Research, a flagship journal of The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).