'Inevitable' flu pandemic 'will kill 75,000 Britons and 50 million worldwide'

Britain is facing an 'inevitable' and 'devastating' flu pandemic which will kill up to 75,000 people, a government committee revealed today.

The outbreak – most likely a strain of bird flu which could claim the lives of up to 50 million worldwide – will be on a scale not seen for decades.

The pandemic will require an ‘urgent’ response to prevent the rapid spread of infection, the powerful House of Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee warned.

They slammed Britain’s ‘poorly coordinated’ disease control systems, which are run by too many similar groups.

And the Lords also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking the ‘organisation and resources’ to curb a major outbreak.

The next pandemic will kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and a fair fraction of that in the UK, it said.

Echoing the report, the Government said: ‘While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.

‘Estimates are that the next pandemic will kill between two million and 50 million people and between 50,000 and 75,000 in the UK. Socio-economic disruption will be massive.’

Peers are calling for international alert systems for disease threats, which will spread rapidly due to our changing lifestyles.

The last pandemics to hit Britain, caused by mild influenza, were in 1918 and 1968.

But the report raised concerns that an outbreak caused by the H5N1 strain, found in birds and poultry, could be utterly devastating, as prevention methods were ‘less comprehensive’ than for human illnesses.

It predicted human-to-human transmission ‘in the near future.’

Three-quarters of newly-emerging human infections come from animals, but experts have warned that they are currently only identified after humans have been infected.

Committee chairman Lord Soley said: ‘The last 100 years have seen great advances in public health and disease control through the world, but globalisation and changes in lifestyles are giving rise to new infections and providing opportunities for them to spread rapidly throughout the world.

‘We were particularly concerned about the link with animal health. Three quarters of new human infectious diseases start in animals.

‘We urgently need better surveillance systems to deal with this problem.’