(CIDRAP News) Warnings that H5N1 avian influenza could touch off a human flu pandemic rose in intensity as a major conference on the problem opened today in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, according to news services.
"We at WHO [the World Health Organization] believe that the world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic," Dr. Shigeru Omi, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, was quoted as saying.