British flu experts to travel to Asia

A team of British scientists are to visit Southeast Asia in order to investigate how to handle a potential outbreak of bird flu.

Experts from the Medical Research Council will leave the UK on Sunday on a fact-finding mission to Vietnam, China and Hong Kong, the region where 60 people have died from the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

The team, led by Professor Colin Blakemore, will present their findings at an international bird flu conference in London in December.

Greece has confirmed the discovery of the H5 virus in poultry, and the H5NI virus was discovered in Turkey last week. On Saturday, it was confirmed that dead birds discovered in Romania were infected with the killer virus and a further possible outbreak in a flock of swans has been reported.

On Sunday, Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson told the BBC that a bird flu pandemic could kill between 50,000, although he said that a final death toll of 750,000 was “not impossible”.

However, he said that 12,000 people died annually from normal winter flu in the UK, and he said that a bird flu pandemic was not likely to occur this year.

The government, which is due to publish updated contingency plans this week on how to to deal with a bird flu outbreak, has begun stockpiling doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, which is neither a cure nor a vaccine, could be used to treat symptoms.

Fourteen million doses have been ordered, although only 2.5 million have been stockpiled so far.

Today, the Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said that Britain was one of the best prepared countries in the world and assusred the public that the viru posed no "direct threat" to humans.

The current avian flu strain does not easily infect humans – it is usually only contracted via close contact with infected birds. However, scientists fear that the virus could mutate into a strain that can pass between humans.

An effective vaccine against the disease could not be developed until such a mutation takes place.

Farmers in the UK have been provided with information on expanding their biosecurity to combat the threat of bird flu and GPs have also been provided with information on how to handle a potential pandemic.

(KMcA/SP)