I ADMIT I was wary when I was approached, late in 2008, about working on a movie with the director Steven Soderbergh about a flulike pandemic. It seemed that every few years a filmmaker imagined a world in which a virus transformed humans into flesh-eating zombies, or scientists discovered and delivered the cure for a lethal infectious disease in an impossibly short period of time.

Moviegoers might find fantasies like these entertaining, but for a microbe hunter like me, who spends his days trying to identify the viruses that cause dangerous diseases, the truth about the potential of global outbreaks is gripping enough.

Then I discovered that Mr. Soderbergh and the screenwriter on the project, Scott Z. Burns, agreed with me. They were determined to make a movie — "Contagion," which opened this weekend — that didn't distort reality but did convey the risks that we all face from emerging infectious diseases.

Those risks are very real — and are increasing drastically. More than three-quarters of all emerging infectious diseases originate when microbes jump from wildlife to humans. Our vulnerability to such diseases has been heightened by the growth in international travel and the globalization of food production. In addition, deforestation and urbanization continue to displace wildlife, increasing the probability that wild creatures will come in contact with domesticated animals and humans.

When I was a kid, the launching of Sputnik made us aware that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union in the race for space. Now all of us are in a battle that is potentially devastating, only it is not against another country, but against microbes. Could a movie like "Contagion" be an effective vehicle for sounding the alarm?

In the hope that it would, I signed on as a paid technical consultant on the film. The first order of business was a casting call for the virus itself. Together with my team at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, I devised the imaginary virus that wreaks havoc in the film. We used as our inspiration the Nipah virus, which in Malaysia in the late 1990s jumped from bats to pigs to humans, causing respiratory disease and encephalitis and resulting in more than 100 deaths before it was contained by quarantine.

My team built a 3-D model of our virus and then worked out how it would spread and evolve, how it would be discovered, how the public health and medical communities and governments would respond regionally and internationally, how vaccines would be developed and distributed. In the film, it takes the lives of millions of people.

Is this fiction? Yes. Is it real? Absolutely. During the SARS outbreak of 2003, the first pandemic of the 21st century, I flew to Beijing at the invitation of the Chinese government to help address the situation there. My memories of deserted streets, food and supply shortages, and political instability are reflected in scenes in "Contagion." I hope the public and our lawmakers will see the movie as a cautionary tale. Pandemics have happened before. And they will happen again.

What can we do to prepare ourselves? A presidential directive in 2007 led to the establishment of the National Biosurveillance Advisory Subcommittee, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to assess our biosurveillance capabilities and make recommendations for improving detection, prevention and management of biohazards. The subcommittee, which includes representatives from federal, state and local agencies, academia and industry (and on which I serve as co-chairman), has issued reports that provide a road map for steps we have to take to protect our future.

First, we need to recognize that our public health system is underfinanced and overwhelmed. We must invest in sensitive, inexpensive diagnostic tests and better ways of manufacturing and distributing drugs and vaccines. Although new technology now allows us to design many vaccines in days, manufacturing strategies for influenza vaccines have not changed in decades. Some experts will say that the time frame within which "Contagion" introduces the film's MEV-1 vaccine is unrealistically short; however, it need not be so. We can and must reduce the several months required to create and test a vaccine before beginning large-scale production and distribution.

Second, more and better coordination is needed among many local, federal and international agencies. Joint effort is required to monitor human, animal and environmental health, optimize electronic health records, mine nontraditional data sources like the Internet for early signs of outbreaks and invest in a state-of-the-art work force.

"Contagion" makes the case that scientists and public health professionals who put themselves on the line to fight infectious diseases are heroes. I hope that, like Sputnik, it will inspire young people to pursue these careers and help the rest of the country understand the importance of these efforts. It is what the world urgently needs.

W. Ian Lipkin is a professor of epidemiology and a professor of neurology and pathology at Columbia University.

(CNN) -- Infectious disease detectives worldwide rushed Thursday to find the cause of an outbreak of a rare strain of E. coli that has spread to 10 countries and is blamed for at least 16 deaths and hundreds of illnesses.

Nine patients in Germany had died of a form of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, according to the World Health Organization, which cited Tuesday figures as its most recent. Six had died of enterohemorrhagic E. coli, EHEC, a strain of E. coli that causes hemorrhaging in the intestines and can result in abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea. One person in Sweden has also died.

Across Europe, 499 cases of HUS and 1,115 cases of EHEC have been reported, WHO said on its website.

In addition to Germany and Sweden, cases have been identified in Austria, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

All but two of the cases occurred in people who had recently visited northern Germany or, in one case, had contact with a visitor from northern Germany, the organization said.

Scientists at the Beijing Genomic Institute said the outbreak of infection in Germany is caused by a new "super-toxic" E. coli strain, though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the strain has been seen before.

"We have very little experience with this particular strain, but it has been seen before," said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC's division of foodborne diseases.

The CDC said the strain is very rare and added that, while it is not aware of any cases ever having been reported in the United States, it is aware of a few previous reports of the strain in other countries. Britain's Health Protection Agency has said that the strain suspected in the outbreak is "rare" and "seldom seen in the UK."

Though WHO said it does not recommend any trade restrictions related to the outbreak, Russia announced a ban Thursday on fresh vegetable imports from the European Union.

Russia imposed the vegetable ban because "no one wants to get sick. It is a natural protective measure taken in response to events that are happening in Europe today," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Thursday.

Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Russian Federal Agency for Health and Consumer Rights, issued a statement saying the ban will remain in effect "until we become convinced that this situation is resolved."

Customs officials have been instructed to prevent the produce from entering the country, according to Onishchenko, while supermarkets and food chains in Russia were told to withdraw European vegetables from their produce bins.

Frederic Vincent, the European Commission's health spokesman, called the move "disproportionate."

"The commission will be writing today to the Russian authorities, and we will be liaising and working with them in the coming days to try to find a solution," Vincent said. The commission is the EU's executive body.

Yelena Skrynnik, Russia's agriculture minister, issued a statement assuring Russians that, despite the ban, "the volume of home-grown vegetable production combined with exports (from other countries) is sufficient to fully meet Russia's domestic demand."

In 2010, the imports of tomatoes and cucumbers from the EU amounted to, respectively, 11% and 5% of all imports of those vegetables into Russia, the Russian Agriculture Ministry said.

The ban could potentially affect some larger cities in the European part of the country, where about 90% of vegetables are imported, said Sergey Shugayev, chairman of the Rural Russia Association.

China and Turkey are the two largest exporters of fresh vegetables into Russia, according to the Russian Greenhouses Association.

The European Food Safety Alert Network initially said EHEC was found in organic cucumbers originating from Spain, packaged in Germany and distributed to countries including Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg and Spain.

But authorities said Thursday the source had not been pinpointed.

Spain's Ministry of Health, Social Politics and Equality said Thursday that all samples of Spanish produce that it analyzed had proved negative.

Spain's ambassador to Britain, Carles Casajuana i Palet, told CNN that Spanish produce had been "completely cleared" and are "safe for all consumers." But, he added, the matter had damaged the country's growers "and we are sure there will have to be compensations" through the European Union.

Britain's Health Protection Agency on Thursday confirmed that there were four new cases in England suspected to be related to the outbreak, bringing the total number of cases in the country to seven.

The agency said that it was "reminding people traveling to Germany to follow the advice of the authorities and avoid eating raw tomatoes, cucumbers and leafy salad including lettuce, especially in the north of the country, until further notice. In addition, anyone returning from Germany with illness including bloody diarrhea should seek urgent medical attention and make sure they mention their recent travel history."

The ban on fresh vegetables from the European Union comes three days after Russia blocked the import of fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and salad greens from Germany and Spain. On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates imposed a temporary ban on cucumbers from Spain, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.