WHO/Europe has been holding annual influenza surveillance meetings jointly with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) since 2011. This meeting brought together epidemiologists and virologists – the national influenza surveillance focal points – from 50 Member States to discuss national, regional and global surveillance related to seasonal influenza and novel influenza viruses, such as avian influenza A(H7N9).
The results of two, as yet unpublished, investigations of laboratory-induced genetic changes in avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses have been reported to have found that a surprisingly few number of changes make the viruses transmissible between ferrets, the most commonly used model for the way influenza behaves in humans. The possibility that this could have resulted in the development in laboratories of A(H5N1) influenza viruses transmissible between humans has caused concern for public safety and generated unusually high levels of debate in the scientific community. This report summarises and explains the complex public health and scientific issues around these developments including the positive and negative aspects of some of the responses that have been proposed internationally.