Emergency room workers will be the first line of defense in the event of a disease pandemic and will be forced to deal with the chaos that inevitably comes with treating thousands of sick and dying.

The journal Respirology has launched a special supplementary issue on the avian influenza. Published by Wiley-Blackwell, the collection of papers present an inclusive insight into the threat of the avian influenza pandemic by addressing a wide range of topics including the basic biology of the virus, updates on laboratory diagnosis and influenza anti-viral, treatment options, and pandemic planning.

The international science community is not doing enough to track the many avian influenza viruses that might cause the next pandemic, a UC Davis researcher says in today's issue of the journal Nature.

The key to control any pandemic is early identification and rapid response. Although considerable progress has been made in global infectious disease surveillance, few scientists are optimistic that an effective early warning system is in place, and many gaps remain, according to researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

St. Jude study shows intramuscular injection of peramivir for 8 days protected mice from lethal H5N1 influenza virus infection and inhibited virus replication, supporting the use of this drug to control influenza during a pandemic