ABSTRACT
On April 21, 2009, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a report informing physicians about two cases of swine inuenza in Southern California (Cohen and Enserink 2009; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2009). BioCaster, a publicly available global health surveillance system (GHIS) based in Tokyo, picked this story up on the rst day it was reported in the English-speaking media (Associated Press 2009). Four days later, with cases of a novel inuenza A (H1N1) inuenza centered on Mexico, Southern California, and Texas, the World Health Organization (WHO) convened its rst Emergency Committee and declared a public health emergency of international concern.
