UK: Local flu pandemic action plan approved

Via This is Wiltshire.co.uk: Flu pandemic action plan approved. Excerpt:

The greatest potential hazard faced by the UK - that was the description NHS bosses in Wiltshire gave to a potential outbreak of pandemic influenza this week.

NHS Wiltshire approved a comprehensive multi-agency plan to protect the population of Wiltshire in the event of a flu pandemic at its board meeting yesterday.

Flu is a common virus, but it is constantly mutating and when several factors combine in a new strain it can become a pandemic.

Pandemic flu is highly infectious and capable of causing illness in a high proportion of people who catch it.

There have been concerns that the H5N1 ‘bird flu’ virus could mutate into a pandemic-causing human flu, but experts say this will probably not be the most likely cause of an outbreak.

Maggie Rae, director of public health in Wiltshire, said: “Every health community in the country has to have a pandemic flu plan because the evidence the government has is that we will have a flu pandemic at some time.”