A basement room in the other-wise fusty headquarters of the World Health Organisation in Geneva houses one of the planet's most sophisticated emergencyco-ordination centres, complete with giant plasma screens, satellite telephone links, advanced computers and heavily secured back-up facilities. Temporarily in action after the tsunamis at the end of last year to help control infection, the room could soon be in use again for a much longer period, to handle the challenge of what may amount to an even more lethal threat: an influenza pandemic.

Lee Jong-wook, who established the centre when he became WHO director general 18 months ago, has no compunction about drawing parallels with the 1918 flu pandemic that caused more than one-quarter of the world's population to fall ill and left 40m people dead.