It was during this stage that Osterhaus incited awareness of a potential pandemic. He became a key figure in the Dutch, European and WHO pandemic preparedness plans, and he aired his pandemic warning ever more frequently and urgently, acting as a catalyst for policymakers. But other threats, such as the threat of bioterrorism (Gezondheidsraad 2001 (Gezondheidsraad , 2002 , foot and mouth, and later SARS, were also posing challenges for virologists. The greatest fears were, and still are, zoonoses: animal viruses that evolve into human pathogens (Gezondheidsraad 2005) . Collectively, this amounted to the second crisis.