Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Britain faces 75,000 deaths in bird flu pandemic, Lords report  predicts

Up to 75,000 Britons will in die in an "inevitable" flu pandemic that
could kill as many as 50 million people worldwide, a parliamentary
committee warns today.
The outbreak, most likely to be caused by a strain of bird flu, will
be on a scale not seen for 40 years and cause "massive" disruption in
the UK.
The committee report (click for PDF) warns that surveillance of
emerging disease threats around the world needs to be overhauled to
provide early warning of potential pandemics.
A new and potentially deadly infectious disease emerges somewhere in
the world every year, threatening "devastating consequences" across
the globe, warns the Lords intergovernmental organisations committee.
Its report, published today, criticises Britain's "poorly coordinated"
disease control systems.
Reform of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is "essential", as the
global health agency is "dysfunctional" and lacking the organisation
and resources to curb a major outbreak, it says.
The committee calls for new international disease surveillance systems
in developing countries. The report says peers were given the
following "sobering" advice by government ministers: "While there has
not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable … Estimates
are that the next pandemic will kill between 2 million and 50 million
people worldwide and between 50,000 and 75,000 in the UK. Socio-
economic disruption will be massive."
Three-quarters of new human diseases originate from animals, but
experts have warned they are currently identified only after people
are infected. The committee chairman, Lord Soley, said: "The last 100
years have seen great advances in public health and disease control
through the world, but globalisation and changes in lifestyles are
giving rise to new infections and providing opportunities for them to
spread rapidly.
"We are particularly concerned about the link with animal health."
The last two flu pandemics, in 1958 and 1968, were caused by
relatively mild strains of influenza. The report warns that the next
could be far more serious, particularly if it comes from the H5N1
strain found in wild birds and poultry, which has already infected
some humans.
The report predicts more widespread human-to-human transmission soon.
When H5N1 was found in Britain last year, the Department for the
Environment and Rural Affairs culled 159,000 turkeys at a Bernard
Matthews farm in Suffolk.
Mass immunisation against H5N1 has been ruled out, but the Department
of Health has stockpiled enough of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to cover
a quarter of the population.
According to the WHO, 385 people around the world have been infected
with H5N1 and 243 of them died. Most of these were in Asia, in
communities with people living close to poultry.
Although it does not easily infect humans, every time it does the
chance increases of it mutating into a form more readily transferred
between people.
The most severe flu pandemic was in 1918-1919. It killed an estimated
50 million people around the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/pandemic.warning

 mondo...
prenditela con gli articolisti nazionalisti del Guardian, che invece
di titolare 50 milioni di morti nel mondo per l'aviaria titolano 75000
brit. E' un ottimo esempio di gretto nazionalismo, incapace di vedere
al di là del proprio naso. Sono certo che se la previsione fosse di 5
miliardi di morti di cui 100 brit il titolo sarebbe stato lo stesso.