London Bird Flu Plans

Ken Livingstone the Mayor of London announced today a fresh plan to deal with the flu pandemic should one break out and explained how he planned to keep the capital functioning in the event of an emergency. It has been revealed that a bird flu pandemic may infect nealry 2 million people living in London and that means that nerly 25% of the population would be susceptible especially children and the young.

The new plan show that the essential workers to keep London going such as the police, firemen Underground and bus drivers as well as the Mayor's staff would be allowed special access to the anti viral medicine Tamiflu in the event of a crisis. The mayor said that 100,000 treatments packs of Tamiflu would be placed with the Greater London Authority Group so that public services would keep moving. The drug Tamiflu has shown to be effective as a prevention and as a treatment for H5N1 bird flu and in this case the Tamiflu is being stored at a secret location in London and is being looked after around the clock by the police.

In another earlier statement the UK Department of Health said that as many as 50,000 people in the UK could die from a serious outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu pandemic and as a result the DoH is maintaining a store of Tamiflu for public use which will be available for both UK and non-UK citizens. The bird flu symptoms are high fever, headaches, physical fatigue, muscle pain and joint pain, a dry cough and a sore throat. The seriousness of the situation is highlighted by the fact that the last flu epidemic that occured in 1918 killed over 50 million people all over the world.