The meeting will continue development of an operational guide for WHO and international public health authorities to use in an attempt to extinguish a pandemic in its initial stages.

Above all it is an animal disease and if one wants to avoid there being any human cases, the virus must really be stamped out in the bird population.

A WHO team is leaving tomorrow for Reunion, where they’ll stay for several days, then to Mauritius, Madagascar and the Seychelles.

… because there’s a lot of movement of people between the islands in the region, there is a risk of it spreading.

Measles could potentially become a serious problem.

health workers are overwhelmed by injured and routine work is disrupted.

Even one case in a country is a problem, because it can circulate in the country and outside the country.

We fear that if people huddle closely together in temporary shelters and crowded conditions, more measles cases could occur.

The virus is still circulating in this corridor, so it’s important to target the children who live on the border between the two countries.

After SARS they know they should really provide timely information about what is going on.

It is not too late. The wounded will need long term care, and the hospitals’ stocks are quick to run out.

An outbreak of cholera, affecting probably several hundreds of people, is occurring,

They (the dead) were certainly all in contact with the same source of infection, but they (the WHO team) will also try to see whether we are looking at the first cases of human-to-human transmission.

That would be the beginning of a human influenza epidemic but we are not there yet.

WHO tries to encourage people to try and lead a healthy life. There is safe sex, one can drink alcohol in a reasonable way and one can attempt eating in a balanced fashion. But with...

The first working hypothesis is that the children touched, played with sick chickens and were infected that way. But they are also going to try to see if we are faced with a first case...

We haven’t received an official request to send experts. But we are in contact with the Nigerian government to see what exactly the country’s needs are.