Maybe it's the book you posted above???
That doesn't sound familiar, but wouldn't explain how the flu was (like influenza each year) all over the world pretty much simultaneously. Flu is not host-dependent or whatever, it does jump from species to species. The reason we have vaccine in the US is that the strains are isolated from Chinese strains. If memory serves, in China the flu strains change by jumping from fowl, to pigs, to people, etc.