While our participants were knowledgeable about the modes of transmission of influenza, very few were able to accurately describe what 'pandemic influenza' actually meant. The participants had heard of 'swine flu' , however only a few demonstrated a high level of knowledge around how it originated. There was a lot of confusion around the role that animals play in regard to 'pandemics'. Unconfirmed beliefs and misconceptions regarding pandemic influenza H1N1 2009 have been previously documented [17, 18] .