Experts on pandemic influenza need to convince governments and the public that, although the 2009–10 'swine flu' pandemic proved to be relatively mild, the threat posed by future flu pandemics is severe and warrants more investment in public education and research (Nature 482, 131; 2012).

Without effective education, there is a danger that the low mortality in the 2009–10 pandemic will exacerbate public scepticism over the lethality of flu. This could undermine compliance with basic preventative measures, such as conscientious personal hygiene and social isolation.

Research funding for pandemic flu prevention and treatment must be stepped up. The US government spent US$26.2 billion on HIV/AIDS activities in 2010, a year in which 1.8 million people died from AIDS worldwide. Tuberculosis killed a comparable number in 2009 and received $224 million for research from the US National Institutes of Health alone in 2010. A pandemic strain of flu could, in theory, cause up to 60 million deaths worldwide in just two years. The $627 million that the US government spent on flu research in 2008–10 (see go.nature.com/c2wwke) would then seem decidedly insufficient.