# 2298
In a world that seems to serve up new threats every day, along with a myriad of other distractions, it isn't difficult to understand how the pandemic threat can slip beneath most people's radar.
Of course, the virus (H5N1) we are watching doesn't care. It just is.
And the H5N1 virus isn't the only candidate out there.
One of them will eventually acquire pandemic capability. And that will happen when it happens.
And that will happen whether we are ready or not.
`Flu Fatigue' Poses Public Health Threat, WHO Says
By Simeon Bennett and Jason Gale
Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Apathy toward the pandemic risk posed by bird flu is one of the greatest threats to public health and may undermine efforts to improve disease detection and control systems in developing countries, a World Health Organization official said.
Health authorities have been monitoring the H5N1 strain of avian influenza for more than a decade for any sign that it is becoming as contagious as seasonal flu. While millions of birds have been infected, fewer than 400 people are reported to have contracted the illness, including 36 this year.
``The threat of a pandemic, of a virus jumping from animals into humans, is still there, but the biggest threat that we have now is `flu fatigue','' Dr. Julie Hall, deputy regional adviser on communicable disease surveillance and response with the WHO's Western Pacific region, told reporters in Sydney today.
Misconceptions that the pandemic threat is ``a storm in a teacup'' may sap investment in surveillance for bird flu as well as other infectious diseases, particularly in parts of Asia, where systems are ``very weak,'' Hall said. Donor governments and organizations such as the World Bank have pledged more than $2 billion the past three years to help poorer nations stem bird flu's spread and prepare for any pandemic it spawns.
