Posted on 10/16/2005 6:44:31 AM PDT by cloud8
The deadly avian influenza virus found in Turkey and Romania is bound to combine with a human variety at some point and cause a pandemic that would kill around 50,000 people in Britain, the country's chief medical officer has warned.
"The significance of it isn't that there will be a pandemic of bird flu itself, the significance of it is that at some point, and we go by the lessons of history, the bird flu virus will combine with a human flu virus and then it will become easily transmissible," Liam Donaldson told BBC television on Sunday as the government prepared to outline a contingency plan on Thursday.
"Why is that inevitable? Well, because it has happened before."
In the 20th century, there have been three flu pandemics, in 1918-19, when as many as 50 million people died world wide, 1957-58 and 1968-69.
On Saturday the presence of the deadly H5N1 virus bird flu was confirmed in Romania, two days after it was found in Turkey.
Donaldson said that a normal winter flu killed more than 12,000 people in Britain every year.
"But if we had a pandemic, the problem would be that our existing vaccines don't work against it, we would have to develop a new vaccine, and people don't have natural immunity because it hasn't be around before.
"So the estimate we are working to in the number of deaths is around 50,000 excess deaths from flu. But it could be a lot higher than that, it very much depends whether this mutated strain is a mild one or a more serious one."
Donaldson however stressed that the pandemic was "less likely" to occur in Europe this winter.
"The attention is focused in Europe because of these outbreaks. That doesn't mean that the pandemic flu is creeping closer to the UK, it simply means that bird flu is occurring in other parts of the world, as it has over the last five to six years.
"I think the likelihood is still that we will see the epicentre of this pandemic of flu, this mutation, in the Far East," he said.
Although there was no way of preventing an eventual pandemic, the government could "limit its impact" in Britain.
Donaldson added: "That is the whole basis of the contingency plan that we will be releasing on Thursday."
The contingency had begun already with the stockpiling of vaccines, the chief medical officer stressed.
"We are one of the few countries to have embarked on this stockpiling at a very early stage... until now, we have been one of the countries which has been in the lead on this, and it is part of a comprehensive plan," Donaldson said.
The government is attempting to amass 14 million doses of the Tamiflu drug, he noted.
"We have got 2.5 million so far and they are coming in at the rate of about 800,000 a month."
The anti-virals would not cure the flu but would reduce the severity of the attack in the first 24 to 48 hours and would stop some people from dying, Donaldson added.
"I think measures such as controlling movement of populations are not as important, because flu transmits extremely quickly... It might be necessary if we were at the absolute peak of an epidemic in this country, but it is not the prime intervention that we need to use."
However, the government could decide to close schools and other public buildings.
This is really getting tiresome. The boy who cried wolf will one day be eaten.
Inevitable. What unadulterated baloney.
Just like the MSM reported there were 10,000 dead in New Orleans, this is being over hyped too.
ONZ, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
(Oh, only the British. Never mind :-).
I am sure that somehow, Bush's Global Warming that HE ALONE caused is the culprit behind all this
> The boy who cried wolf will one day be eaten.
More like Chicken Little. The sky is falling!
Take your vitamin C, and button up your overcoat. AND DON'T PANIC!!!
And don't visit chicken farms.
Sadly Ive seen FReepers say the the "human strain" of the virus is emerging in Europe. The problem I have with that is the fact that there is no "human strain".
fyi
A pandemic is inevitable one day. If not this one, another one. Same with an asteroid strike. They happen.
But I agree with you regarding the "cry wolf." TOugh issue for the public.
NPR, November 2004...
A shortage of flu shots means tens of millions of Americans -- even those considered high-risk patients -- will go unvaccinated this year. How are public health officials handling the shortage? Is America facing a possible flu health crisis? Follow NPR coverage.
...we're all going to die!
The article mentions vaccine but Tamiflu is not a vaccine. It's an anti-viral drug that doesn't even work well against the H5N1 virus since the virus has built up a resistance to it.
Personally, I'm looking forward to having an excuse to claim that "bird flu" caused me to poop on peoples' windshields, especially the Volvos with the lefty bumperstickers!
***And don't visit chicken farms.***
What! NO chicken soup?
And I live in Chicken country!
A pandemic is a global epidemic. The article uses the term as if described the diseases virulence instead. Britain cannot on its own have a "pandemic".
> I did a search and there is considerable information on
cinnamon as a flu drug.
Wow, that's really interesting. Good thing it didn't turn out to be something like brocolli :-)
:)
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