As the immediate threat of Sars faded from our communal memory, headlines were full of the threat of bird flu. Today, there is little in the press about the danger of the pandemic that could wipe out tens of millions of people. Yet the threat remains unchanged.
How come this potential killer disease seems to have faded from the headlines and disappeared from the public consciousness?
In 2004 the University of Hong Kong's head of Community Medicine, Professor Anthony Hedley, warned in a paper to Legco about the dangers of having humans and potentially infected birds together in wet markets.
This could create a killer stew of infection if bird flu jumps from animals to humans, as has happened in Vietnam, China and Indonesia. There's no reason it could not happen here.
Just last week, the American Academy of Paediatrics and the Trust for America's Health issued a joint report warning that US authorities need to improve plans for child protection if super-flu closes schools. Young people are prime causes of concern because they are more likely to pick up and touch birds that have died of the deadly H5N1 virus.