The scourge of malnutrition affects the most vulnerable in society, and it hurts most in the earliest stages of life. Today, more than 800 million people are chronically hungry, about 11 per cent of the global population.

Ten years ago, on March 12, I sent an urgent e-mail to the World Health Organisation. I was in charge of Hong Kong's Department of Health at that time. We were screening more than 50 hospital staff for symptoms in a mysterious outbreak of flu-like illness.