A major avian influenza pandemic will be very costly in terms of human lives as well as economic losses, especially in the densely populated city-state of Singapore.
This is consistent with current knowledge of the behaviour of H5N1 virus that inefficient, limited human-to-human transmission may occur on rare occasions.
The Ministry also advised extra precaution for travellers to areas affected by the avian influenza outbreak including countries in Asia (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China) and Europe (Turkey, Romania, Greece, Russia).
In June 2005, a ban was imposed on keeping live poultry in Pulau Ubin, this is to prevent infection on the livestock by migratory birds.
To tackle a possible outbreak of bird flu, Singapore is increasing its resource such as isolation facilities in hospitals and stockpiling medicine.
[2] In the event of an outbreak, Singapore will resume health screening of all visitors, as during the 2003 SARS crisis and quarantine suspected victims.
In January 2006, Singapore announced that it will contribute S$1 million over three years to the global fund-raising effort to fight bird flu, specifically for ASEAN countries.