out of these deaths 70,000 of them will occur in the United Kingdom.,,,

An alarming report coming from Harvard University shows that if a full blown influenza pandemic were to breakout in the world is estimated that as many as 62 million individuals could die. The report goes on to say that out of these deaths 70,000 of them will occur in the United Kingdom.

This statistical analysis was worked out by using the death registrations that occurred between the years 1915 and 1923. The famous “Spanish Flu” that killed millions of people occurred between the years 1918 and 1920 and by examining increases in deaths over these years they were able to get a good idea of how many people the Spanish Flu actually killed. The Spanish Flu was in fact a bird flu and a variant on the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus that we are now seeing in the world today.

By making use of sophisticated mathematical formulas they were able to calculate that between 51 million and 81 million men and women would die worldwide if a similar type of virus was to become contagious between humans today. The scientists also considered regional differences which are found to have an effect on the amount of people dying of the bird flu virus. For example richer countries which have access to the influenza medication Tamiflu and good hospitals will have a lower number of deaths compared to those countries which have poorer medical facilities.  They estimated that more than 95 percent of all the deaths from the bird flu virus would come from the third world.

The research that was led by Christopher Murray was published in the famous medical journal The Lancet. Other research done with the bird flu virus has estimated that the amount of people who could die from it could even top 1 billion worldwide.