Fear has spread across much of the world in recent times. With devastating natural events such as the tsunami in Asia, the earthquake in India and Pakistan, and hurricane Katrina in the US, humanity has been placed in a very difficult time. With the most recent attention now focusing on the deadly avian flu virus, the world's troubles are not going away, but they are now faced with the possibility of an extreme flu pandemic.

The past has shown that pandemics occur roughly a few times each century. A virus will mutate to a form that is immune to current treatments and due to rapid growth can quickly wipe out large populations. Experts agree that we are on the verge of a new global pandemic. However, unlike historical deadly diseases, the world has a better ability to avert devastation because of modernized advancements in technology and health.

The world has responded to the issue of a possible global pandemic by taking serious steps and implementing specific operating procedures to use when the virus is found. Different control measures in effect are quarantining (isolating) infected farms, or slaughtering large amounts of infected or exposed animals. These safety measures are preventative but because the virus is spread in such an unpredictable fashion, authorities are skeptical that they have fully contained it.

Since more recent cases have arrived for the first time in Europe, authorities are finding it increasingly difficult to isolate and exterminate the problem. Many countries have been prompted to begin stockpiling (stocking up on) flu vaccines, even though they have yet to prove their effectiveness. Another problem with this is that the orders of vaccines take around 10-20 months to be completed. So, if an outbreak were to occur in the near future, most countries would be defenseless.