ABSTRACT
The emergence of pandemic swine flu H1N1 in Mexico in 2009 surprised scientists and public health officials alike. Over the past decade many had trained their eyes on influenzas circulating in East Asia instead, specifically in southern China. The latter region is currently ground zero for a variety of influenza subtypes circulating across livestock and waterfowl. Among them, influenza A (H5N1), the bird flu virus that until this year served as influenza’s poster child, first emerged as a highly pathogenic recombinant in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in 1996. In the decade that followed, H5N1 spread across Eurasia, into Africa, and south to Indonesia, infecting millions of birds and, as of April 2010, 493 humans (World Health Organization, 2010).
