Pandemic 'could kill 750,000 in UK'

Up to 1.2 million people could end up in hospital and 750,000 killed if a flu pandemic sweeps the nation, according to draft Government guidance about an outbreak. Skip related content

As hospitals are "rapidly" overwhelmed by patients, doctors may have to begin operating a lottery system for intensive care, the blueprint from last year adds.

It also warns that a worst-case pandemic scenario of "catastrophic severity" could result in the "complete or partial collapse of some or all hospital infrastructures".

Top medics have downplayed the predictions, saying factors like Britain's high state of readiness and high immunity levels will lessen the impact.

The bleak forecasts come in "Pandemic influenza: Surge capacity and prioritisation in health services", which was prepared by the Department of Health (DH) last September.

It says up to half the UK population - or 30 million people - could get influenza if the bug outbreak turns into a pandemic.

In the worst case, there would be 2,000 hospital admissions per 100,000 people - or 1.2 million people. There would also be 1,250 fatalities per 100,000 - or 750,000 people.

The report says: "Over the entire period of a pandemic, up to 50% of the population may show clinical symptoms of influenza.

"This could result in the total healthcare contacts for influenza-like illness increasing from around one million during a 'normal' season up to 30 million."

There are also grim implications for the demand of the nation's estimated 3,450 adult intensive care beds and 320 children's.

Prevention

Prevention of swine influenza has three components: prevention in swine, prevention of transmission to humans, and prevention of its spread among humans.

Prevention in swine

Swine influenza has become a greater problem in recent decades as the evolution of the virus has resulted in inconsistent responses to traditional vaccines. Standard commercial swine flu vaccines are effective in controlling the infection when the virus strains match enough to have significant cross-protection, and custom (autogenous) vaccines made from the specific viruses isolated are created and used in the more difficult cases.[23][24]
Present vaccination strategies for SIV control and prevention in swine farms, typically include the use of one of several bivalent SIV vaccines commercially available in the United States. Of the 97 recent H3N2 isolates examined, only 41 isolates had strong serologic cross-reactions with antiserum to three commercial SIV vaccines. Since the protective ability of influenza vaccines depends primarily on the closeness of the match between the vaccine virus and the epidemic virus, the presence of nonreactive H3N2 SIV variants suggests that current commercial vaccines might not effectively protect pigs from infection with a majority of H3N2 viruses..