The World Health Organization Global Influenza Programme is developing “pre-pandemic” candidate vaccines based on H5N1 viruses from infected humans. These pre-pandemic vaccines are needed for preparedness planning and are used in studies that inform dosage, cross-reactivity, and cross-protection. They are also available for governments to request for pilot vaccine production (World Health Organization, 2007).

Do you think that these pre-pandemic vaccines will be effective against an H5N1 influenza that becomes human-to-human transmissible? Why or why not?