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Bird Flu Pandemic Death Toll 'Could Top 50,000

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 06:00 CDT

By John-Paul Ford Rojas and John Deane

The Government's chief medical officer yesterday warned that a bird flu pandemic could cause 50,000 deaths in the UK.

But Sir Liam Donaldson said the figure could be "a lot higher" depending on the seriousness of the strain of the virus.

He said it was a question of "when, not if" although it was "less likely" that the problem would hit this winter.

Officials announced on Saturday that samples of Romanian bird flu being tested this weekend in a British laboratory did contain the deadly H5N1 virus.

Further results are needed to find out whether it is similar to the particularly lethal strain which has been found in Turkey and Asia.

Scientists fear H5N1 could genetically mutate into a form which is easily passed from human to human, sparking a global pandemic. About 60 people in Asia have died from the virus since 2003.

Sir Liam told the BBC's Sunday AM programme that more than 12,000 people die annually with the normal winter flu.

"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," he said.

"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."

History suggested the bird flu virus would combine with a human virus, becoming easily transmissible.

It had happened in 1918, 1958 and 1968-69, and came in "natural cycles" with the flu virus every ten to 40 years mutating into a strain for which people did not have natural immunity.

Sir Liam said: "It is when(not if). But there is a lot we can do to prepare. If we look back to the last pandemic in 1968/69, we didn't have some of the measures that we now have, like anti-viral drugs."

The Government is trying to amass 14 million doses of the Tamiflu drug to tackle bird flu, with 2.5 million stockpiled so far and the rest coming in at a rate of 800,000 a month.

The stockpile will be enough to treat 25 per cent of the population, the proportion the Department of Health believes would be affected by the virus.

But an effective vaccine cannot be manufactured until the genetic form of any virus infecting Britain is known Sir Liam claimed Britain was one of the few countries to have embarked on the stockpiling at "a very early stageand it was part of a "comprehensive plan".

"We can't make this pandemic go away, because it is a natural phenomenon, it will come. But what we can do is to limit its impact," he said.

These were "very different times" to the Spanish flu of 1918-19, when 40 million died worldwide, including 250,000 in the UK, "before proper hospital facilities, before intensive care, before antibiotics".

Higher estimates of deaths up to 750,000 from a future pandemic were "not impossible" although Sir Liam said: "I think it is more realistic that the figure will be a lot lower than that."

Asked about whether the problem would hit in the coming months he said: "I think it is less likely that it will come 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."

Officials said that farmers had been given better bio-security and risk assessment advice on the threat of the bird flu while GPs had also been given advice on what to do in the event of a pandemic

In the event of a pandemic, measures would include developing a vaccine and deploying anti-viral drugs, which would reduce severity in the first 24 to 48 hours of the disease and stop some people dying from it

Measures such as controlling movement of populations would only be necessary at the "absolute peak of an epidemic in this country

But people may be advised against non-essential travel to slow the spread of the virus and schools and other public buildings might be closed

The priorities for a vaccination programme would include essential workers such as frontline NHS staff and high risk groups such as the elderly and those with chronic diseases

Source: Birmingham Post; Birmingham (UK)

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