Prof Krause is director of the university's Webster Centre for Infectious Diseases.
The centre is named after Dr Robert Webster, an Otago University microbiology graduate, who is a leading United States-based authority on influenza, including bird flu.
Prof Krause said it was still too soon to tell whether the tests involving some New Zealand school pupils who had flown back from Mexico would reveal swine flu, "but it seems very likely".
"It's also too early to predict if this swine flu outbreak will become a pandemic," he said.
New Zealand had undertaken extensive planning to counter a potential flu pandemic, including stockpiling Tamiflu, an antiviral drug.
"All the preparations pay huge benefits, whatever disease comes up that becomes a threat," he said yesterday.
"It's encouraging that the young people in the US who were infected are getting better.
The reported deaths in Mexico were clearly a concern, but given there had likely been thousands of influenza cases there, the actual percentage of deaths was likely to have been "very low".
There were also initial signs that the disease could be sensitive to Tamiflu, he said.
New Zealand had a good outbreak monitoring centre at ESR in Wallaceville, near Wellington, headed by Dr Sue Huang, and also had other excellent scientists, like Dr Lance Jennings, of the University of Otago and Canterbury District Health Board.
Associate Prof Michael Baker, of Otago University's Wellington campus, said the swine flu outbreak highlighted the value of pandemic planning, which was an area in which New Zealand enjoyed a "huge advantage".
"New Zealand has one of the most comprehensive plans of any developed country," Prof Baker said in an interview.
Prof Baker, who undertakes research on the effectiveness of border controls in countering outbreaks of infectious diseases, said the swine flu outbreak also highlighted how unpredictable emerging infectious diseases were.
He had been corresponding with other researchers, at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US, and they had been surprised that, despite its geographical remoteness, New Zealand was one of the first developed countries to have experienced a disease problem apparently linked to the Mexican outbreak.
