In the Thai case we have seen the prime minister ask one of the deputy prime ministers to head an inter-ministry group. The high level of political attention is key.

I'm sad to say we have not had a significant influx of cash for bird flu over the last two years since we've really started to get worried about it.

Their view is they would like to feel that other countries who have samples or material would share them freely with Chinese scientists. They are putting a lot of importance on the notion of reciprocity (...), which they used to me on a number of occasions and I don't know what it means.

It may well shift from Turkey into other European countries. The good news is that in Turkey it has only involved a small number of people.

They're what's required to help countries put in place their influenza programs and to get much better and effective control. They're also monies that are required by the international organizations.

This is not the start of the pandemic. The start of the pandemic starts when there is human to human transfer, confirmed and sustained.

Avian influenza is a big threat. It is spreading throughout the world.

Something generally disturbing is going on at the moment. It's certainly in the bird world, and it's pushing up against the human world in a serious way.

Because it is moving and because we believe wild birds are implicated, predicting where it's going to flare up next is a very tricky thing to do, and being able to know the scale of the flare-up is also quite tricky.

We expected it to move, but not any of us thought it would move quite like this.