WHO Warns of Flu Pandemic (Source: VOA News)
From the article:
The World Health Organization says public-health officials and governments worldwide should be preparing for a possible global influenza outbreak - a health emergency that could kill millions of people.
Experts from 11 countries - including representatives from vaccine manufacturers and health laboratories, regulatory authorities and health ministries - issued the warning at a two-day meeting in Geneva on how to prevent a future pandemic - a worldwide outbreak of disease with possibly catastrophic consequences.
The last two flu pandemics occurred in 1957 and 1968. Both caused millions of deaths, although they were smaller in scale than the worst flu outbreak in modern history, which killed up to 50 million people early in the 20th century, just after World War I, in 1918-1919.