Influenza virus infections have long been considered a unique and major public health problem throughout the world. In the United States alone, influenza has accounted for as many as 500,000 excess deaths (1918) and billions of dollars in direct medical costs and lost productivity (1968). Efforts to control the impact of disease have varied widely in developed countries, including both voluntary and mandatory programs with inactivated and live, attenuated vaccines. Recent advances in antiviral chemotherapy and both recombinant DNA and peptide synthesis technologies present further possibilities for the prevention or attenuation of infection. Convening an international group of both basic and applied research scientists, public health officials, and representatives of health-promotion organizations in the setting of a UCLA symposium represents a unique effort at sharing current knowledge about the relative merits and shortcomings of each control measure. The final session of the meeting will be devoted to developing an informal consensus regarding short- and medium-term priorities for vaccines and drugs which are now available, or will soon be available for the control of influenza. Development of such a consensus should assist in the implementation of cost-effective strategies for controlling influenza, and will also assist in establishing priorities for influenza research.
