Dedicated 'EUSurveys' on the preparedness to detect, identify, confirm and manage patients with suspect or confirmed Ebola Virus Disease, MERS-coronavirus patients and cases of new avian influenza strains have been carried out at the occasion of the EU coordination and management of specific events, which has shown a good level of preparedness of Member States.

A likely source of such a pandemic would be a highly pathogenic avian flu virus which, after mutation or recombination with that of human influenza, may produce a highly infective virus which is not covered by the existing vaccines and therefore requires a 'new' one.

8. Urges Member States to increase influenza vaccination coverage before a pandemic in accordance with WHO recommendations, which will also encourage industry to expand production capacity to meet the expected pandemic demand for vaccines; calls on Member States to target poultry farmers as part of the highest-priority wave of vaccination in order to reduce the chances of recombination of human and avian influenza viruses at one of the most important potential interfaces; r eminds Member States that stockpiling vaccines and antivirals with a view to a pandemic will be less costly than the losses after an outbreak w ...[+++]ithout vaccines;

(13) In the case of detection of infection with low pathogenic avian influenza virus, or in the case of serological evidence of infection, where the presence of the virus cannot be confirmed by virus isolation tests, control measures should differ from those which should apply in the case of detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, taking into account the different levels of risk posed by these two conditions.

(13) In the case of detection of infection with low pathogenic avian influenza virus, or in the case of serological evidence of infection, where the presence of the virus cannot be confirmed by virus isolation tests, control measures may differ from those which should apply in the case of detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, taking into account the different levels of risk posed by these two conditions.

- that poultry cullers wear protective clothing and take antiviral drugs as a precaution; vaccination against normal seasonal influenza should be encouraged as a way to reduce the chance that this high-risk group might be co-infected with an avian and a human virus, thus giving the viruses an opportunity to exchange genes and to generate pandemic virus strains.