Professional Resources

As of August 2006, 241 humans have been infected with H5N1, 141 of who have died from the disease.  It is important to mention that on average 10-20% of the U.S. population is infected every year with non-pandemic strains of influenza with an average of 36,000 deaths.  To be sure, an outbreak of a pandemic strain, like H5N1 would be disastrous, leading to countless infections and a projected death toll in the millions.

Royal Institution World Assembly (RiSci) project

To help increase awareness of this threat among senior policymakers in the Group of Eight and key Asian nations on influenza preparedness, NTI's Global Health and Security Initiative supported the Royal Institution World Science Assembly's (RiSci) project on pandemic influenza preparedness.

This project designed a targeted, highly strategic education campaign aimed at educating senior policy makers about the threat posed by pandemic flu. The Global Health and Security Initiative provided technical and financial support to this effort, which included a global virtual workshop on pandemic flu preparedness. Click here for more information on the project and to read the Foreign Affairs and Nature Magazine articles on pandemic influenza.

Microbial Threats to Health

Separately, with support from the Global Health and Security Initiative, the Executive Summary of the 2003 Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science (NAS) report Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response, and the section on the threat from pandemic influenza has been reprinted. The editors of the report have also written a new preface on pandemic influenza. The reprint is being made available at no cost. Click here for the free PDF.