When the pandemic was declared, Dr Margaret Chan, the Director of WHO, advised member states to implement their pandemic plans [1] and health agencies, other government agencies and businesses worked hard to do this. In most countries it may be correct to conclude, as did an evaluation of the UK response, that the "pandemic and the response it generated have provided confirmation of the value of planning and preparedness" [3] . It is also true that the apparent success of the response in 2009 must not lead to complacency. We now know that the relatively low virulence of pH1N1 meant we did not need to have implemented effective responses to get a good outcome.