Research in this field is extensive and wide-reaching. Experts are looking at everything from human and viral genetics to potential involvement of bacterial infections and elsewhere for clues as to why some people face serious complications from this virus, seemingly at random.

Preparing for the Unknown

In 2009, research models predicted that a Southeast Asia-based strain of flu, such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, would take two to four months to spread within the area and that it would arrive in Europe and North America about a month after that, giving Western countries three to seven months to develop treatment plans and vaccination options.

Instead, the H1N1 flu emerged in Mexico, causing North America to endure the epidemic without a vaccine.

Even when an outbreak takes place in a part of the world remote to our own, poor surveillance and reporting capabilities in these areas, including Southeast Asia and Africa, can delay how quickly a pandemic is detected.

The influenza virus is currently spreading and mutating in the cells of billions of birds, pigs, bats and other animals, meaning that tracking animal populations can offer opportunities for early intervention.

But monitoring alone will not be enough to prevent against a large-scale pandemic of a deadly flu strain. Researchers are actively developing new proto, or seed vaccines, to test against newly emerging strains of the flu. From a logistics perspective, planning has to be done to ensure that treatment is available to sufferers who need it. In 2009, when the H1N1 pandemic struck Europe, even though it was a milder outbreak than in the U.S. (because of the arrival of a vaccine), many hospitals still ran out of respirators, hospital beds and nursing staff.