anyone else heard about this ?
there has been a lot of talk about where I work over the last few months, and ’emergency’ planning being put into place for when it come to the uk. For example: where my friend works planning areas to be used for morgues, quarrantine etc,
we have been told to expect it to come next year, with the possibility of killing hundreds of thousands
Only friends of mine that work in health care have heard about it, so I was wondering if it is common knowledge?
There seems to be alot on the net about it, it seems that this ‘threat’ has been banded about since atleast 2003, with the main consern being the H5N1 strain connected to bird flu
Quote:
According to the World Health Organization, to date there have been 382 people sickened and 245 deaths caused by the H5N1 bird flu strain, mostly in people in close contract with poultry in southern Asia and Africa. Public health experts believe the world is due sooner or later for another influenza pandemic, with human-to-human transmission, which could be caused by any influenza strain to which people don’t have immunity.
There’s alot to read:
from the department of health national framework 2008
Quote:
Influenza pandemics are natural phenomena which occurred three times in the last century. Their severity has ranged from something similar to seasonal influenza to a major threat, with many millions of people worldwide becoming ill and a proportion of these dying. No country can expect to escape the impact of a pandemic entirely, and when it arrives most people are likely to be exposed to an increased risk of catching the virus at some point. Influenza pandemics therefore pose a unique international and national challenge. As well as their potential to cause serious harm to human health, they threaten wider social and economic damage and disruption. Measures to prevent, detect and control them require coordinated international effort and cooperation, with one country’s action – or inaction – potentially affecting many others.
Although it is highly likely that another influenza pandemic will occur at some time, it is impossible to forecast its exact timing or the precise nature of its impact. This uncertainty is one of the main challenges for policy makers and planners. Even if – as seems likely – a pandemic originates abroad, it will probably affect the UK within two to four weeks of becoming an epidemic in its country of origin, and could then take only one or two more weeks to spread to all major population centres here.
Quote:
Given the limited scope to avoid the increased risk of infection when the pandemic is in the UK, the framework advises that in most circumstances the public should carry on with their daily lives for as long and as far as that is possible within the constraints the pandemic will impose, whilst adhering to government advice, taking sensible personal precautions and adopting good hygiene measures.
Quote:
Flu Pandemic May Cost World Economy Up to $3 Trillion (Update3)
By Jason Gale
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) — A flu pandemic could kill 71 million people worldwide and push the global economy into a “major global recession” costing more than $3 trillion, according to raised estimates by the world bank of a worst-case scenario.
A slump in tourism, transportation and retail sales, as well as workplace absenteeism and lower productivity caused by a “severe” outbreak, may cut global gross domestic product by 4.8 percent, the Washington-based bank said in an internal report updated last month and obtained by Bloomberg News today. Economic modeling by the bank in June 2006 estimated GDP would drop by 3.1 percent, or about $2 trillion.
The spread of the H5N1 avian-influenza strain across Asia, Africa and Europe prompted the development of vaccines and the slaughter of poultry from Indonesia to the U.K. Measures to avoid infection would generate most of the costs, said the report, which used simulations to underline the importance of global preparations for a pandemic sparked by bird flu. Human cases of H5N1 infection have fallen by half this year as controls of outbreaks in poultry improve.
“Even with such efforts, an eventual human pandemic at some unknown point in the future is virtually inevitable,” Andrew Burns, Dominique van der Mensbrugghe and hans timmer, economists at the bank, wrote in the report.
Pandemic Threat
The threat of a flu pandemic, raised by the World Health Organization in 2003, persists because the H5N1 virus is entrenched in parts of Asia and Africa, the World Bank said. Such a contagion would start when a novel influenza A-type virus, to which almost no one has natural immunity, emerges and begins spreading. Experts believe that the so-called 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which may have killed as many as 50 million people, began when an avian flu virus jumped to people.
“Because such a pandemic would spread very quickly, substantial efforts need to be put into place to develop effective strategies and contingency plans that could be enacted at short notice,” the economists said. “Much more research and coordination at the global level are required.”
The World Bank, which funds projects to alleviate poverty, is working with developing countries to improve hospitals and laboratories, enabling better surveillance and management of avian flu, and to prepare for a possible pandemic
At least 387 people in 15 countries have been infected with the H5N1 virus since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Almost two of every three cases were fatal. So far this year, 36 cases have been reported, down from 74 in the first 10 months of 2007.
Eliminating Disease
More than 50 of the 61 countries that have experienced an H5N1 outbreak in poultry in the past five years have successfully eliminated the disease, according to the United Nations.
In Vietnam, one in eight domestic fowl died from the disease or were culled to prevent its spread in 2004. If the virus were to become as entrenched in poultry flocks globally, it would trim 0.1 percent from global GDP and as much as 0.7 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the World Bank report.
World leaders will be asked to donate about $500 million — the amount required annually to fund bird flu control efforts and prepare for a pandemic — when they meet Oct. 24 a UN official said.
`Massive’ Cost
“The potential cost of a human pandemic is massive compared with the quite modest sums required to ensure pandemic preparedness,” said david nabarro UN senior coordinator for avian and pandemic influenza, in a telephone interview from Geneva today. The funds “must be coupled with political commitment to ensure that all parts of government, civil society and the private sector are prepared to keep functioning in the event of a pandemic.”
A “mild” pandemic, similar to the Hong Kong flu of 1968- 69, could kill about 1.4 million people and cut global GDP by 0.7 percent in the first year, according to the World Bank’s latest estimates.
Seasonal Flu epidemics result in 250,000 to 500,000 deaths annually, mostly among those older than 65 years, according to the World Health Organization.
A “moderate” pandemic characteristic of the 1957 Asian flu could kill 14.2 million people and shave 2 percent from the global economy in the first year, the bank said. Some forecasts have estimated deaths during a “severe” pandemic at as high as 180 million to 260 million, the report said.
Changed Behavior
Changed behavior by individuals in the face of a pandemic, such as reduced air travel in order to avoid infection in the enclosed space of a plane, avoiding travel to infected destinations and spurning restaurants and mass transport, could account for 60 percent of costs during a pandemic, the bank said.
“People’s efforts to avoid infection are five times more important than mortality and more than twice as important as illness” in terms of economic impact, the authors said. In the worst-case, they assumed that air travel would slump by 20 percent for the whole year, and that tourism, restaurant meals, and use of mass transportation would decline by the same amount.
“Given the tremendous uncertainties surrounding the possibility and eventual nature of a pandemic inflation, these simulations must be viewed as purely illustrative,” the report said. “They provide a sense of the overall magnitude of potential costs. Actual costs, both in terms of human lives and economic losses, may be very different.”
Last Updated: October 17, 2008 07:08 EDT
Quote:
British Government officials, policy makers and academics have been meeting to
Decide how best to combat the threats to public safety and security from climate change.
They have been gathering at the Royal United Services Institute in London this week to discuss the UK’s contribution to resilience against these increasingly complex challenges.
SCRIPT:
Like many countries the UK is facing a series of challenges to protect public safety in light of challenges from increasing episodes of extreme weather, natural disasters, food and energy insecurity and terrorism.
These are global challenges which seriously impact world geo-politics –threatening security.
Experts say building a capacity to adapt both physically and socially to climate change is key.
SOT: (English Speech) super: Dr Chris West, Director of UK Climate Impacts Programme
“It changes not only the frequency of things we know about, like flooding, like coastal sea level rise and perhaps heat waves but introduces the prospect of very much greater, nastier impacts that may originate outside the United Kingdom, maybe the result of population movement elsewhere in the world and we are increasingly venerable because we are less tolerant of extreme weather events and they cost money and lives. Outside the UK, I think that the greatest threat is around food production where climate change will effect where in the world food can be grown, change the flow of money and those can have big effects on people’s lives.”
Pandemics are another major threat. In the latest figures from the UK’s Cabinet Office, an influenza outbreak is the top risk for Britons.
SOT: (English Speech) super: Professor John Oxford, Professor of Virology
“The difference about influenza, compared to some of these other threats is that it is global. We are all on this little globe together, so we expect influenza to break out in places like the Far East but we know that people are travelling through the Far East to London everyday. So wherever it starts it will be here in half a day. We can do a lot against diseases. A lot already has been done against the influenza virus. I have been very impressed with the UK developments which has seen stockpiles of vaccines, stockpiles of anti-viral drugs, a plan and not only is there a plan but it has been tested almost like in action so all of this add ups to quite a good protective glass wall.”
So anyone heard about this?
whats your take on it?
