Swine Flu Cases Spreading Rapidly in England -- Could kill 65,000 in UK, warns chief medical officer

[FourScore]

Check out this graph of how it is spreading in England:

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/07/16/Swine_Flu_UK_update.pdf


Up to 65,000 people could die from swine flu in the UK in a worst case scenario set out by the chief medical officer as the government launched a national service for patients to obtain antiviral drugs over the internet and telephone.

With 29 deaths now linked to the pandemic and a further 53 patients in intensive care, the cabinet's emergency planning committee, Cobra, is meeting three times a week to prepare for the impact of the rapidly spreading pandemic.

On a day of dramatic revelations, the Department of Health revealed:

• The launch of the National Pandemic Flu Service helpline for England.

• 55,000 new infections last week.

• More than 650 people in hospital.

• Half of the UK's children might fall ill.

• 132 million doses of a vaccine – still in development – have been ordered, enough for two injections for every UK citizen.

The internet service and helpline will initially involve 2,000 people in call centres giving out advice and prescribing antiviral drugs such a Tamiflu and Relenza. The number has not yet been given out, but the helpline should open by the end of next week. It is intended to relieve intense pressure on GPs and hospitals.

The online service will let people follow a series of diagrams to input their symptoms, which will then allow them to prescribe drugs for themselves. Every caller will be given a unique reference number after giving their name and address, and will be reminded that antivirals have side-effects. Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, said the government would have to trust in the "honesty" of the public not to abuse the system.

The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will not be part of the National Pandemic Flu Service, but will still rely on frontline services to treat patients.

The new total for swine flu-related deaths includes 26 in England and three in Scotland. It is not known how many had underlying health problems.

Last night, it was reported that a six-year-old boy had died of swine flu in Kent and his school had been closed, but local health authorities refused to confirm any details beyond saying they were investigating a case of swine flu.

The death earlier this week of Chloe Buckley, a six-year-old London schoolgirl, is still being investigated. The first six-year-old to die was Sameerah Ahmad in Birmingham, who had underlying health complications.

Health ministers from across the UK are attending weekly Cobra meetings to assess the impact of the disease. Senior civil servants from across Whitehall are also conferring three times a week.

The health secretary, Andy Burnham, said: "I want the public to be reassured we have been preparing for the possibility of a pandemic for a number of years and all that pre-planning is now paying dividends."

Sir Liam Donaldson said there was no evidence to suggest that the virus was mutating into a more virulent form.

The new service would, he said, "take the pressure off the frontline primary care and A&E departments to allow them to concentrate on the most ill patients".

Current planning assumptions involve a range of anticipated casualty rates. It is expected that as many as 60% of the population will eventually become infected, but only around 30% will fall ill and experience significant symptoms. That would produce 65,000 deaths if the mortality rate was as high as 0.35%, and 19,000 deaths if it was a rate of 0.1%.

The most optimistic scenario set out is based on only 5% of the population falling ill and 3,100 dying.

The mortality range should be seen in the context of recent outbreaks of seasonal winter flu, such as that in 1999-2000, which caused more than 21,000 deaths.

Donaldson said: "We can't give an estimate of deaths from this virus yet. We don't know enough about it." Health officials remained uncertain about what could happen next: infections may accelerate until they reach a peak in September; or the closure of schools for the summer may slow the spread of the disease.

The officials are particularly concerned that the hospitalisation rate is highest in the under-five age group, with young children who catch the infection three times more likely to need inpatient treatment.

Donaldson said infection rates were "absolutely intense" in "hot spots", and spreading.

The NHS has drawn up contingency plans to cancel routine operations if the situation deteriorates further.

One firm monitoring the outbreak said that up to a third of the UK's workforce might have fallen sick by September. Oxford Economics, a forecasting organisation, warns that the pandemic could knock 5% off the country's gross domestic product.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/16/swine-flu-pandemic-warning-helpline

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Somewhere round these parts I read

that this was not serious.

:-)

Thanks for posting more info.

One of the great mysteries will be why in the US it has been SO FAR this mild

[MercutioATC]

5. No mystery...we're looking at 95k-500k deaths in the U.S.

This strain seems to have a mortality ratebetween .1% and .5%.

Without it getting more lethal, we can plan on at least 95k deaths in the U.S. this flu season.

[BlooInBloo]

8. 95,000 - is that just swine flu you're claiming, or all flu strains total?

[MercutioATC]

9. AH1N1 alone.

At least 95k.

Assuming, of course, the lack of an effective and available vaccine (which seems to be the case).

[BlooInBloo]

10. Roger that. Will check back.

[MercutioATC]

11. 95k is actually a pretty reasonable figure.

That would make its mortality rate only about 3X that of normal seasonal influenzas.

[Oregone]

13. Hopefully

Though, if the health care resources become strained and people are rationed treatment/vents/space/meds you could see the morbidity rate climb. 95K is based on numbers from essentially first world countries trying to deal with this, while having ample resources (though, probably limited experience).

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. That would place it within historical pandemic flu seasons, except 1918

that was particularly nasty

thanks

Historically the 1956 and 1968 were relatively mild and 1976 was contained before it could take hold at a US Army base. We just didn't realize it.

[Hannah Bell]

28. how do you figure?

[elehhhhna]

35. and we're not testing suspected cases here...i'm SURE i had it three weeks ago

(Houston area), and a co-worker is getting over it now. It's mild but it does drag on. 101 fever--tops. Mild chills, muscle aches -- think healthclub inflicted in terms of intensity, and a dammned pinchy headache (worst part). Easier than the usual flu, fersure.

Docs not testing here unless to confirm due to sever complications.

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. Same experience here and mine was even milder than yours

on the bright side, you and I got our "vaccines" ahead of schedule... I am still going to get it... pesky mutations, but from the history of these things, people who get it in the first pass are mostly immune in the second one.

[elehhhhna]

72. we have immunity now? SUPER!

[Art_from_Ark]

6. That figure is pure conjecture

Last year they were saying that the bird flu was definitely going to start killing off people left and right. Remember that?

And before that, there were all those other "destined-to-become-a-pandemic" diseases such as Ebola, E.coli, West Nile Virus, SARS, ad nauseum.

[MercutioATC]

7. You're confusing your sources and terminology.

I don't recall any health organization predicting that AH1N1 would be "killing people left and right". They DID warn of the possibility of a pandemic (which has been realized), but the "pandemic" designation has nothing to do with mortality rates.

...and Ebola, by it's very nature, has virtually no possibility of reaching pandemic status.

[Art_from_Ark]

14. Local news last year was predicting numerous deaths from bird flu

"Killing people left and right" is my interpretation of their hyperbole.

The news media is always looking for doomsday news to hype.
Now, health agencies are apparently jumping in the game.

No one can predict with any certainty that X number of people will die from any new seasonal disease that may or may not morph into a more lethal strain several months down the road. Those figures are purely conjecture. And this isn't 1918, nor is it even 1968. It's more like 1976, when national health authorities were predicting thousands of possible deaths from that generation's version of swine flu.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. This might help

the definition of pandemic by WHO states that it is spread from person to person in at least two regions in the world.

Now do tell me exactly where in there it is hyperbolic, or saying people will die left and right?

That said, the standard for pandemic as established by the WHO some time ago have been met, haven't they? For the record, we have solid transmission of the disease person to person in Latin America, North America, and Western Europe. We have some evidence that it is also achieved this in South East Asia. Now I might be geographically challenged, but that is more than two... just an observation of mine.

Now hold YOUR LOCAL media to task, The WHO did not raise the alert level with Bird Flu even from one to two. Oh and Ebola... as you were told, for it to go to pandemic status you'd need multiple weaponized releases. it is really bad about keeping its primary host alive long enough to make the jump. Why it is very deadly when it appears, but in limited areas... it tends to burn itself out before it can do that. For the record, if anybody did that in a major city... it would not be pretty... but hey that could be the plot for a nice novel, like oh Hot Zone... wait, been done.

[MercutioATC]

17. I can't speak for every local news outlet, but the WHO and CDC have been pretty conservative.

They're hardly looking for doomsday news to hype.

...and those are their numbers.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. So who can predict with any certainty, deaths from a new disease

months in advance? No one can. Any estimates are purely conjecture.

I've seen it time and again. I've lived through various pandemic/epidemic scares. I remember the 1976 swine flu scare, where reliable government sources were predicting a pandemic, and President Ford was pushing the swine flu vaccine-- which turned out to be a bust, and the vaccination program was suspended indefinitely, in September 1976.

[MercutioATC]

22. Of COURSE we can.

The current projections are based on existing data and make no assumptions about mutations.

Currently, AH1N1 is a "Category 2" On the Pandemic Severity Index, indicating a case-fatality ratio of .1%-.5% (similar to the Hong Kong and Asian Influenzas).

Assuming no mutation, and assuming that roughly 30% of the population contracts it, AH5N1 will kill 95k-500k Americans.


They're not pulling these numbers out of their asses...it's based on existing data.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. So there are two assumptions

One of those assumptions is that there is no mutation. Fair enough.

But the other one is unrealistic. 30% of the population contract the disease? Do you really believe that nearly 100 million people in the United States will contract the swine flu during the next flu season? That sounds to me like it is, indeed, a "number pulled out of their asses".

[FourScore]

26. AP: CDC Says 1 Million Swine Flu Cases Thus Far in US, Most Cases Mild

Their not just pulling numbers out of their asses. And keep in mind, these one million cases occurred when it was NOT flu season.

1 Million Swine Flu Cases in U.S.
CDC Says Vast Majority of Cases Were Mild
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

June 25, 2009 -- Over 1 million Americans have had swine flu, the CDC estimates. Half those cases have been in New York City.

The estimate, from a still-being-analyzed CDC study, was reported by CDC flu researcher Lyn Finelli, DrPH, at a meeting of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

"Right now, we are estimating over 1 million cases in the U.S.," Finelli said.

About 6% of U.S. households in major cities have had at least one case, according to data from New York City, Chicago, and the University of Delaware.

The vast majority of cases have been mild. While over one in 10 reported cases have sent patients to the hospital, Finelli says that the large number of unreported cases means that a much lower percentage of people with swine flu actually get severe disease.

But a significant minority of cases has been severe. As with seasonal flu, the highest rates of severe cases occur in the very young -- children under age 4 years -- and adults over age 65.

Most swine flu hospitalizations are among people with underlying medical conditions:

* 32% have asthma or chronic lung disease
* 16% have diabetes
* 10% are current smokers
* 7% are pregnant

An analysis of 99 of the 127 U.S. residents who have died of swine flu shows that 87 of them suffered underlying conditions:

* 11% had asthma
* 24% had other lung diseases
* 13% had diabetes
* 11% were morbidly obese
* 34% were obese

The CDC is currently investigating the emergence of obesity as a risk factor for severe swine flu.

Finelli said there have been five swine flu deaths among pregnant women; most were in their 20s. They died at various trimesters of pregnancy: one in the first, one in the second, and three in the third. Underlying conditions are not known for all the women, but several had none.

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090625/1-million-swine-flu-cases-in-us?src=RSS_PUBLIC

[Hannah Bell]

45. that's not confirmed cases, per the cdc website, which lists under 50K when i checked today.

"The estimate"

[FourScore]

51. Of course it's an estimate.

Do you know how much it would cost to confirm every case? But they do have methods for coming to these estimates. They're not just drawn out of thin air...

[Hannah Bell]

then certainly you shouldn't mind my clarifying the distinction.

[Hannah Bell]

54. then certainly you shouldn't mind my clarifying the distinction.

[Hannah Bell]

29. hk flu killed 34000 americans out of a population of about 200 mill = .017% of pop. or

.17 deaths/1000 population.

the scenario of 95-500K deaths out of 300 mill pop = .03-.16% of the population, .3-1.6 deaths/1000.

i'd say they're pulling it out of their asses when best case scenario = double the hk flu.

normal seasonal flu kills about 36K/yr.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

19. There were numerous deaths from the flu last year there are every year.

If the H1N1 mutates and becomes more virulent this fall then a whole lot of people are going to die. You could always look on the bright side, unemployment will almost certainly go down if 500,000 people die. Please educate yourself or at least get some life insurance.

David

[Art_from_Ark]

21. I have educated myself through experience with pandemic scares

Really, there seems to be a new one each year, and they all have turned out to be mostly hype.

And life insurance to prepare for croaking from the swine flu, which has claimed maybe a few hundred lives, mostly in third world countries? Are you serious?

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. From a week ago: 211 deaths in US

http://www.cdc.gov/H1n1flu/update.htm

And that is the figure used in this table:



referred to here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferguswalsh/2009/07/what_are_the_chances_of_dying_from_swine_flu.html

So there have already been hundreds of deaths outside 'third world countries'.

[Hannah Bell]

31. death rate in eu & uk = ,1%. canada = .4%, mex = 1.0%, us = .56%.

interesting discrepancies.

[Chemisse]

36. That has to do on how many people are being tested.

These numbers are faulty in that many people are mildly sick and not tested for Swine Flu.

[Hannah Bell]

37. doesn't quite make sense. tests on confirmed cases should be very similar,

& rates of confirmed cases as % of population are similar:

canada: .029%

uk: .0156%

us: .012%



uk & canada with national health, ought to have similar rates of testing for cases & death rates, but canada's confirmed cases & deaths = higher than uk.

what you're saying makes more sense re us & mexico. in us, higher death rate with lower confirmed case rate seems to support your view.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. I don't think you can read too much into a snapshot of countries' figures

For instance, the number of deaths in the UK was reported at 17 this Monday, and 29 by the end of the week: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8154419.stm

Since each country will have had contacts with the first cases at slightly different times, may have different population concentrations with slightly different climates, and may have reported the figures that went into that tables a few days apart, there doesn't seem to be much you can really compare between them usefully. My main point was just to show the deaths had already reached a notable level in developed countries.

[Hannah Bell]

46. why don't you tell the other posters busy reading mass death.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

48. Who is reading mass death?

[Chemisse]

66. You can only confirm cases if you test for it

Say there was a case of swine flu in a school of 1,000 kids. All the students were tested and 200 were found to be infected. One dies. That is a mortality rate of 1 in 200.

Another identical school has a case. This time only the kids who are hospitalized are tested. Let's say 20 wind up in the hospital. Again, one dies. Now you have a mortality rate of 1 in 20.

Countries are similar, especially as the disease progresses. Some are testing more aggressively than others. I think that totally accounts for the discrepancies.

[FourScore]

27. Wow. Billions of dollars have been spent on pandemic preparedness

Millions more are being spent on creating a vaccine...

...and if only they had talked to you first. Surely you should be a Presidential Cabinet Advisor on Health and Human Services...NOT!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. So you took a public health class? Worked in health care?

Again... you THINK you know, but I will brutally honest, you know shit about the subject. Serious.

By the way, I am way glad and happy you are not in charge of national health policy. After all you remind me of St. Reagan, for whom AIDS was not that serious and it was just a GAY disease. Yes, this is the level of ignorance you are exhibiting.

[Hannah Bell]

38. is there some reason you invariably personally insult everyone who disagrees with you?

[Pachamama]

53. A good friend of our family died last night in the CT/NY area of H1N1

Very tragic and sad...He was a chiropractor, in his early 40's and leaves two small children behind. What is so scary is that only a month ago he was healthy and now he is dead. Because he works in a hospital, he caught a bacterial infection that seemed to not be able to be treated by the antibiotics and the H1N1 virus which had already lower his immune system, caused him to be more susceptible to infection and losing the battle against both.

I will admit, when the news first came out and all the hype about the H1N1 virus, I thought it was blown out of proportion. But when the WHO came out and declared it pandemic level 6 (?) and that the news included in this post and of course now knowing someone who contracted it and is dead, I am really concerned that even in the US the worst is yet to come and we are not out of the woods on this by any means.

[hedgehog]

55. While it sounds ghoulish to say so, we accept the normal

winter flu mortality because it mostly hits the elderly and sick. The fear is that this flu will take out children and young adults.

[nadinbrzezinski]

56. And the pattern is exactly what we have mostly seen

I was joking with parents about it, ghoulish I know... but if they don't have enough vaccines they will have to triage, and for once I am ahead of them in the triage priority for it.

[hedgehog]

58. It actually makes the most sense to vaccinate the children first -

the little critters are germ factories and a major vector in spreading disease! I think recent studies have shown that if you vaccinate the people around an elderly person, that may be the most effective protection since elderly immune systems aren't always triggered by the vaccine.

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. True, but given who is at risk for once

they will recommend middle aged people get vaccinated when they are NOT usually at risk. (and I am at risk)

Now if I were in charge, with what I know of this bug, my triage list would go as follows:

Kids at risk, you know diabetes, asthma, the usual

Middle age adults at risk, same list

Kids

Middle age

Older folks at risk

Older folks

Though I would try to get the Pneumovax in wide spread use in the older population just in case.

Fortunately the last time I played god was over ten years ago and it had nothing to do with the flu

:-)

Just a nasty accident... car went into the wedding... lord we had serious all over the place...

Oh and of course this list is different for the annual flu, not to be confused... and these days they are starting to recommend the annual flu shot for school age kids as a matter of course. And the reason, all them pesky studies.

[hedgehog]

60. I think you have the right order on your list based on what I've read.

I'm always amazed when these topics come up how people's trust in science falls apart when there are shots involved! Everyone laughs at the fundies for denying the evolution of man, but there are a lot here who have no concept that viruses evolve.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. I am always amazed too

but Muricans are truly willfully ignorant when it comes to science, and all them Conspiracy theories don't help.

I mean most people do not realize why we have almost run out of flu shots regularly for several years. There is no money in flu vaccines, truly. So we are down to very few labs producing it.

Now Tamiflu, there is more money, alas, the damn thing has, from one of them WHO reports I read... don't have the link handy, developed a certain resistance to it. So useful, not so much.

Of course the guv'ment produced them as bio-weapons usually makes me laugh, HARD.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. My condolences

and yes the media did act irresponsibly, why some of us tried to explain this in a more scientific way

:-)

I fear you are correct though (and for the record the CDC and WHO are very conservative in their estimates but they have said that the winter will not be fun and games)

[Sigh Sister]

67. I'm sorry for your loss.

I know a man who has been on a vent for about a month now. He is in his 40's and was healthy prior to getting H1N1. The speed at which he became critically ill was very scary. He was flying back from Europe and felt unwell when he boarded the plane. By the time he landed in the US, he was so ill, he was immediately taken to the hospital and ended up intubated and in the ICU. They have not been able to wean him off of the vent.

[slipslidingaway]

2. kick for tomorrow, thanks n/t

[BlooInBloo]

3. 65,000? Ok - will check back.

[csziggy]

4. Their online diagnostic and treatment idea is terrific

If it does become a serious pandemic. I could see how the system could be automatic, with ticket for prescriptions printed and taken to your local pharmacy - or even have the system send it electronically to your choice of pharmacy or to a pharmacy with the needed supplies.

That in particular could be valuable to prevent panic of supplies of the most commonly known drugs become scarce - the prescription could be filled with whatever is available and most people would never know.

[Oregone]

12. Canada's graph

[Tindalos]

47. Thanks for posting this

I was looking for stats like this earlier today.

[FourScore]

71. What is the difference between morbidity and mortality rates?

Thanks for the graph!

[mamaleah]

18. The biggest thing that worries me is

that people no longer know how to stay home when ill.

Ask anyone with kids how much sicker they than when most of us were young. Kids regularly get a cold and stomach virus every damn year. When I was in school, you got mowed down by the stomach bug maybe once every so many years. Why? Because as soon as we were ill our parents kept us home.

I understand that our new society doesn't allow for people to stay home when ill, but we need to start thinking about it again. We have to stop pretending it's perfectly fine to go to work, the mall, other people's homes, school, etc when ill.

[SheilaT]

25. Bingo!

And companies that don't offer sick days off are more than tacitly encouraging sick employees to come to work. Plus, those who never take a sick day in a system where sick days are offered are often praised highly, even -- maybe especially -- if they come to work sick.

That said, I've been paying attention to the yearly hype about how this year's flu season is going to be terrible and millions will get the flu and hundreds of thousands will die. Everyone, regardless of actual health status or situation is told a flu shot is the only way to avoid this deadly threat. Maybe all the hype is simply motivated by big Pharma's desire to make big bucks off flu shots. And every year the killer pandemic fails to materialize.

As I have pointed out many times here on DU, the conditions that existed during the 1918 flu epidemic don't exist any more. The primary one is that some large percentage of people 90 years ago did not have running water, and so basic hand-washing -- the most effective public health measure of all time -- did not occur on a regular basis. Also, there's no war going on, and young men are not being crammed into marginally sanitary living conditions, young men who were literally just off the farm and had never been around very many people and so had an immune system that wasn't well developed. Those young men got the flu in huge numbers and were continually shipped overseas to spread the infection, despite the fact that the Surgeon General of the United States kept on telling the President that simply stopping troop shipments would probably slow, maybe even halt the spread of the flu.

Everyone panics about the world-wide transportation system which does allow people to move across the planet in short time, but notice that if a half-dozen people get sick somewhere the CDC is on top of it. If anything, such close monitoring of outbreaks of disease make the world seem far more dangerous than it is.

Maybe the most important thing to notice about the original post is that the death toll estimate is based on a worst-case scenario, not a more realistic mid-point.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. YOu do realize that flu shots are NOT a money maker and why

labs really don't like making them?

:banghead:

Yes I know, it is all a conspiracy!

By the way, do READ CDC releases and WHO releases and do point to the hype.

:yoiks:

[Hannah Bell]

33. bullshit. bullshit, bullshit.

Swine flu shots to boost Baxter
Company reports 2nd-quarter profit increased by 13%, 2009 forecast raised

July 17, 2009
International demand for a swine flu vaccine is developing into a boon for Baxter International Inc.

On a day the Deerfield-based medical-product giant reported a 13 percent boost in second-quarter profit, Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Parkinson said the company's plant in the Czech Republic was running at capacity as it fills orders for 80 million dosages from five countries.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-fri-baxter-swine-flu-0717-jul17,0,3826525.story


Tamiflu boosts drug firm's profit

Many countries have been stockpiling Roche's Tamiflu drug
Swiss drugs group Roche has reported a 34% jump in annual profits, boosted by sales of its flu anti-viral Tamiflu.

Roche said net income in 2006 rose to 9.17bn Swiss francs (£3.7bn; $7.4bn), from 6.86bn francs a year ago...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6338617.stm

[mamaleah]

40. Hasn't Tamiflu been found to not be very effective against swine flu?

I thought there was a thread here about that.

[Hannah Bell]

41. it has. does that have something to do with the profit picture for flu vaccines?

[mamaleah]

43. No....i was only asking.

You get rather defensive easily.

[Hannah Bell]

44. i was only asking too. you read things into posts easily.

[Curtland1015]

68. No, he's right. You sound defensive.

Sorry.

[Chemisse]

64. I recall hearing of tamiflu resistance among some swine flu cases.

[S_E_Fudd]

69. Three cases...

Happens with seasonal flu as well...

[mamaleah]

39. Running water or not, most people's handwashing is subpar on a good day.

Go stand in the washroom or a movie theatre and watch as people come out of the stalls. Most barely rinse their hands for a few seconds. It takes not more than 20 seconds to properly wash your hands. And it is one of the most effective ways to cut down on the sspread of things like norovirus.

[StarryNite]

62. Sing "Happy Birthday" twice

while washing your hands. Then if in a public restroom don't touch the doorknob or door with your hands on the way out.

[Kaleva]

52. It was different when I was growing up

Me and all my classmates had stay at home mothers. The only adult women I knew that were employed were single or widows.

[readmoreoften]

73. People know how to stay home, they can't afford it or their bosses won't let them.

And when their kids are sick they can't afford to keep them home either. Then they have to go to the grocery store to get OTC meds, fluids, etc. It's pretty simple math.

[The Backlash Cometh]

34. Why is England so different than anywhere else?

[LeftishBrit]

70. We're a seaport, so that if a highly infectious disease occurs anywhere it's usually only a matter

of time till it gets here.

But also: we have relatively careful tracking and recording of such illnesses. I'm sure that lots of people in other countries get it, but especially the milder cases may not get recorded to the same extent as here.

[Wednesdays]

49. K&R

:kick:

[jcarterhero]

63. Absolutely insane - though highly questionable

I think it's just more fearmongering from the media.

[NNN0LHI]

65. UK chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said bird flu was going to kill 50,000 back in 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4346624.stm

Bird flu pandemic 'will hit UK'

Last Updated: Sunday, 16 October 2005, 13:25 GMT 14:25 UK

A bird flu pandemic will hit Britain - but not necessarily this winter, the chief medical officer has said.
Sir Liam Donaldson said a deadly outbreak would come when a strain of bird flu mutated with human flu.

He told the BBC's Sunday AM show it would probably kill about 50,000 people in the UK, but the epicentre of any new strain was likely to be in East Asia. snip

750,000 deaths?

If a new strain did hit the UK before a vaccine was created, Sir Liam said an extra 50,000 would probably die - and a death toll of 750,000 was "not impossible".

"In a normal winter flu year... flu actually kills in excess of 12,000 people," Sir Liam said.

"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."