Monday, October 17, 2005
UK Starts to prepare
The UK media is beginning to hype up the possible Bird Flu pandemic. There have been lots of references in the press and on TV about people panic buying, although it doesn't appear to be very widespread, if it is happening at all.
More seriously though, the government is beginning to let it be known that people need to be prepared. Theer is news that they may use the Civil Contingencies Bill to stop large public gatherings (footy matches etc.) and close schools down. This will only happen if human-to-human transmissions are common though.
Bigger issues are the fact that Tamiflu may be redundant by the time H5N1 mutates enough to transmit human-to-human. With one case in South East Asia already reported to be immune to Tamiflu, could people sitting on stockpiles of the drug have made an expensive mistake?
More seriously though, the government is beginning to let it be known that people need to be prepared. Theer is news that they may use the Civil Contingencies Bill to stop large public gatherings (footy matches etc.) and close schools down. This will only happen if human-to-human transmissions are common though.
Bigger issues are the fact that Tamiflu may be redundant by the time H5N1 mutates enough to transmit human-to-human. With one case in South East Asia already reported to be immune to Tamiflu, could people sitting on stockpiles of the drug have made an expensive mistake?
# posted by steve @ 10:29 AM 
