"The threat of an influenza pandemic is very real and inevitable at some point in the future. There is evidence of pandemics occurring throughout history, including three in the 20th century, but we do not know when the next pandemic will occur. Pandemic influenza will be a global health emergency and everybody should prepare for it." Health Protection Agency spokesman
Despite the recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5NI and low pathogenic H7N2 in the UK, a study conducted by Oxford University reveals complacency about the threat of avian flu by doctors. “Most of the 161 doctors questioned at a recent conference in the U.K. thought a pandemic this decade was ``possible'' and 9.9 percent said it was ``unlikely'' or ``very unlikely,'' according to a study published today in the British journal Archives of Disease in Childhood”.
The spread of the H5N1 avian influenza strain to 59 countries the past four years has brought the world closer to another pandemic than at any time since 1968, when the last of the previous century's three major outbreaks occurred, world health experts say. While H5N1 has killed millions of poultry, fewer than 200 people are known to have died from the virus, which isn't easily transmitted between people.
``Just like the public, doctors have heard about it for so long and yet it doesn't seem to eventuate,'' Curtis said in a telephone interview from Melbourne yesterday. ``The incorrect conclusion people draw from that is that maybe it's never going to happen, whereas history tells us that there is an inevitability of a pandemic at some point, it's just a question of when, where and how large.''”
Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=aIFyUwcIJ8og&refer=uk
http://www.onmedica.net/content.asp?c=40314&t=1
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