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STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - It will take at least two years before the European Union is fully ready to deal with a flu pandemic, the bloc's disease control agency said Thursday.
While all EU countries have completed national preparedness plans for how to deal with a possible pandemic, more work is needed to make them fully operational, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, or ECDC, said in a report.
ECDC Director Zsuzsanna Jakab said the bloc has made "considerable progress" in its preparation since 2005, when fears spread among Europeans that the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu might mutate to a form more easily transmitted to and between humans and spark a pandemic.
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