Dick Thompson Pandemic Quotations

We know we're overdue for an influenza pandemic strain, and we know it will occur, but we don't know when or even exactly what virus will cause it. It is possible that the virus won't be H5N1 at all or that this virus will change in a way so that the vaccine under development doesn't work against it.

But the risk is pretty much the same as it has been, it is very low to humans, but we're worried about the transformation of the virus into a human pandemic strain.

H5N1 has pandemic potential but it is not a pandemic virus.

There are a lot of scary stories out there about the next pandemic, but we have to make difficult decisions without a lot of information. The real answer is we don't know until the next pandemic virus appears.

When the virus shows up in a new country, it doesn't mean that the pandemic has started, it means that the animal disease has spread.

We're not going to know how lethal the next pandemic is going to be until the pandemic begins. You could pick almost any number.

We keep encouraging countries to develop a plan because a pandemic is inevitable.

People confuse it with pandemic influenza, but they're very different diseases,

This is progress and an important step in pandemic vaccine development.

The world is not very well prepared, ... We think pandemic preparedness is really essential.

I hope we are not creating a sense of panic... because we need the public's trust to encourage governments to begin or continue pandemic preparedness efforts.