Novel and Re-emerging Respiratory Viral Diseases

The past decade has seen mounting global concern regarding viral outbreaks such as SARS, avian influenza and West Nile virus. In 2004 and 2005, reports of bird-to-human, and possible human-to-human, transmissions of the H5N1 influenza viruses raised fears that these viruses could cause a pandemic on the scale of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.