50,000 Britons Could Die of Bird Flu, Claim

BRITISH infection experts are travelling to south-east Asia to investigate how a deadly bird flu pandemic could be tackled, it emerged today.

The fact-finding mission was announced after the government’s chief medical officer warned that 50,000 Britons could be killed if the disease takes hold among the human population.

A team from the Medical Research Council (MRC) is expected to visit China, Vietnam and Hong Kong – where the first deaths from avian flu were reported.

Led by Professor Colin Blakemore, its findings on handling emerging infections will be presented to an international conference in London in December.

Scientists from the publicly- funded MRC discovered the flu virus in 1933, and the organisation is still considered a world leader in the field.

The government’s chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, told the BBC’s Sunday AM programme a bird flu pandemic could kill 50,000 people in this country, but it was not likely to happen this winter.

He said more than 12,000 people died 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 been 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."

The chief medical officer is due to announce an update to government contingency plans for bird flu on Thursday.

His warning was delivered as it was confirmed bird flu found in Romania was linked to the virus found in Asia and Turkey.

Results from a British laboratory showed samples contained the deadly H5N1 disease. Yesterday, Defra announced this was the same particularly lethal subgroup of H5N1 which has been seen in the Far East.

A spokesman said: "It is an Asian strain and it is linked to a sample found in a gull in China. It is connected to the Turkish strain."

BIRD FLU – YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED Q: Is an outbreak of deadly bird flu among humans inevitable?

A: No, there have been no examples yet of the virus passing from humans to humans.

Q: Can people catch the virus by eating poultry?

A: No.

Q: What is the government doing about it?

A: The government is stocking up on Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug which would prevent the virus spreading inside the body and prevent some deaths. But it is not a cure.

Q: Will everyone be given the drug?

A: No. Officials have ordered 14 million doses of Tamiflu, enough to cover a quarter of the population. But so far only 2.5 million have been amassed and they are being delivered at the rate of 800,000 a month. The government has no plans to issue it tohealthy people as a precaution.

Q: Is there a vaccine?

A: No, a vaccine for the mutant form passing between humans cannot be developed because no such strain has yet been found.