Commentary: Europe's preparedness for an influenza pandemic

The paper in this month's edition of the European Journal of Public Health on Europe's preparedness for an influenza pandemic1 is highly relevant in the light of the emergence of the influenza A(H5N1) virus in humans in Southeast Asia and, more recently, in Turkey and Iraq.2 The paper provides a nice overview of the different organisations in Europe that are active in the field of influenza pandemic preparedness and highlights some important challenges that need to be addressed: how to make vaccination and antivirals available to all persons in Europe when these are organised at a national rather than European level? The paper misses out on one important development and this concerns how much Europe's preparedness has improved in a very short period of time. Only 6 years ago, in 2000, Europe was …