Anyone ever read The Stand (by Steven King)? In that book the deadliest flu ever was created by military scientists in a bio warfare lab(well, it is Steven King after all) but the story of how it overwhelmed the public and wiped out 99% of the population left a lasting impression. As did the very real Spanish Influenza of 1918.
Airborne viruses scare the ____ out of me. They're very hard to control. Unlike AIDS. Hopefully our wonderful benevolent authorities are spending as much $ to solve the former problem as the latter.