There is evidence that individual perceptions of risk are important determinants in undertaking preventive, and/ or protective behaviours for events such as pandemics as long as people know how to manage their risk [3, 5, 12, 21] . Some participants appeared to have a sense of "personal invulnerability" based on their history of rarely having experienced flu's or colds. The comments were also indicative of the phenomenon of unrealistic optimism. This means that while people accept the existence of a risk to the community in general, they see themselves as less vulnerable or more capable than others. This bias results in their transferring risk from themselves to others and seeing risk communications as applying to others rather than to themselves [6] . This bias represents a significant constraint on the effectiveness of risk communication. However, encouraging active discussion of pandemic issues in community groups can reduce its influence.