Inevitable Flu Pandemic Will Kill 75,000 Britons and 50 million Worldwide
July 24, 2008 by admin
Filed under Featured, Stories Of Interest
Britain is facing an ‘inevitable’ and ‘devastating’ flu pandemic which will kill up to 75,000 people, a government committee revealed today.
The outbreak – most likely a strain of bird flu which could claim the lives of up to 50 million worldwide – will be on a scale not seen for decades.
The pandemic will require an ‘urgent’ response to prevent the rapid spread of infection, the powerful House of Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee warned.
They slammed Britain’s ‘poorly coordinated’ disease control systems, which are run by too many similar groups.
And the Lords also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking the ‘organisation and resources’ to curb a major outbreak.
The next pandemic will kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and a fair fraction of that in the UK, it said.
Echoing the report, the Government said: ‘While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.
‘Estimates are that the next pandemic will kill between two million and 50 million people and between 50,000 and 75,000 in the UK. Socio-economic disruption will be massive.’
