Failure to act now… will leave us empty handed when a pandemic strikes and will cause needless deaths.

In these countries, the risk of a pandemic virus emerging is much higher than it is in Western Europe.

The situation in the Netherlands could be quite explosive because of the huge concentration and numbers of poultry. It is worse than in other countries.

I think we should form a European influenza task force that brings together all our knowledge, so that if you have outbreaks in the future you could form delegations to work together with local experts...

If we see what is happening in Europe at this moment, I think we have to be worried. We see dead swans and we know that swans are highly susceptible [to H5N1]. And they share...

I think it is a worrisome situation, especially because we think that swans could be an indicator species, meaning that swans are relatively susceptible and so it could well be that other aquatic birds could...

There is little you can do about the wild birds, especially the migratory ones, it’s very difficult to do anything there and probably it’s not possible or even desirable. The most important thing is to...

Swans fly no more than 50km a day. Looking at the way the disease has spread ‘­ one day it’s in Italy, a day later it’s in the north of Germany ‘­ that makes us...

Cat-to-human transmission is theoretically possible and not to be excluded.

The big problem, of course, is that the number of people on whom real extensive pathology has been carried out is limited.

There is a real threat, and I think the situation we are facing today is quite alarming. We really fear that this particular virus might be at the basis of the first pandemic outbreak of...

From a public health point of view, I think what is happening in southeast Asia is much more serious than what would be happening in Europe … .