Throughout history, human survival has depended on the ability to identify threats and respond in timely and intelligent ways. In the distant past, threats to life tended to be more immediate and often mysterious. Plagues and catastrophes came without warning, rendering whole communities helpless. We live in a very different world, but people still have the primal fear of unknown threats lurking over the horizon. In 2003, after a mystery disease that came to be known as SARS broke out, The Age observed that fear itself posed a great threat to social and economic wellbeing. We also wondered at the complacency about the risk of a flu pandemic when even the common flu of a typical year leads to 250,000 deaths worldwide and about 2000 in Australia. Most people at risk still do not get vaccinated.

Levels of concern about defences against diseases compared with, say, terrorism are not proportionate to the relative threats to life. More to the point, a disproportionate political response is exposing all Australians to the risk that the powers created by draconian security laws will be abused. The need for close judicial oversight has been demonstrated by the abuses that occurred within the Immigration Department for want of proper scrutiny. Yet Attorney-General Philip Ruddock, who as immigration minister grossly exaggerated and exploited the threat of asylum seekers as a "national emergency", asks us to trust the Government's assessment that the terrorist threat justifies new security powers and its pledge that such powers will not be abused.

The threat of global terrorism is real, but the Government has not justified, in any meaningful way, the need to fundamentally alter the democratic balance between the powers of the state and the rights of the citizen. This shift is made possible only because political leaders have reacted so anxiously, perhaps to cover political backsides in case of an attack. This has made something of a mockery of the advice, "be alert but not alarmed". Although much parodied, that is the proper response to both terrorism and infectious disease. We suspect this week's anti-terrorist exercise, Operation Mercury, exposed concerns about operational preparedness and co-ordination that are more pressing than any deficiencies in the law.

Emergency services also have cause for concern about preparedness for natural disasters, here and overseas. The earthquake in Kashmir is the latest tragic reminder that the world has yet to master the basic practical requirements of effective disaster management. Similarly, initial responses to bird flu were alarmingly reminiscent of the SARS outbreak. There have again been cover-ups by governments concerned about public panic and economic losses.

Awareness of the danger is no longer an issue; understanding is. Three imported pigeons carrying antibodies to bird flu were treated as front-page evidence of the disease threat. In fact, while the antibodies were evidence of past exposure to a form of the virus (not necessarily the dangerous H5N1 strain), the birds were healthy, no longer carried the virus and posed no disease risk. In any case, migratory wild birds can carry the disease around the world. Although the H5N1 virus is not passed from human to human - the relatively few human cases are linked to close contact with infected birds - a higher incidence of contact and infection increases the risk of a mutation that makes person-to-person transmission possible. To limit such contact, international co-operation is needed to track and contain outbreaks. Nations must share their scientific and logistical resources - as Australia is now doing with its neighbours - if only to buy time to prepare for the moment the disease becomes transmissible between people.

Bird flu certainly would not be the first virus to jump species. Even then, the mutated virus may not infect people as readily as birds nor be as lethal. It is believed, however, that past pandemics began the same way; the recent laboratory recreation of the 1918-19 Spanish flu suggested avian origins. This work highlights a life-saving difference between the war-devastated nations of that time and now. We have a good idea of what we are up against and how to counter it. Indeed, we are better placed than we were a year ago. Great leaps in microbiology and genetic engineering give us unprecedented abilities to identify, treat and protect against a new flu type, first with antiviral drugs, then with a vaccine. Forewarned is forearmed, but only if all nations work together to prime the world's defences against a pandemic