# 1072
The debate over the likelihood of a pandemic in the near-term is perhaps the most common conversation in the Flu world. Historically, pandemics have happened on average, once every 30 years. But there have been gaps between pandemics as little as 10 years, and as many as 42 years. Currently, we care coming up on 40 years since the last pandemic, and many fear we are overdue.
In the UK, the government has adopted the idea that the odds of a pandemic occurring in any given year are 3%. And for a quick and dirty calculation, this probably makes sense. If a pandemic occurs on average every 30 years or so, 3% seems pretty close.
Of course, adjustments to this `rule of thumb' need to be made when conditions warrant. We have a novel avian virus, endemic in birds across vast areas of our world, and being transmitted to humans sporadically. This changes the odds.
How much?
Well, that's the subject of the debate.
Risk of bird flu pandemic 'greater than claimed'
Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent, Sunday TelegraphLast Updated: 9:34am BST 19/08/2007
The Government has massively underestimated the risk of a bird flu pandemic sweeping across Britain, experts have warned.
Contingency plans drawn up by the NHS are based on a 3 per cent chance in any given year that the virus will mutate into a form that infects humans. However, an international review at a summit of avian flu experts put the risk of a pandemic during the next year as between 5 and 20 per cent.
Leading scientists described the Government's current assessment as "dangerously optimistic" and called for more money to be made available for drugs to protect the public in the event of an outbreak.
A review carried out by the Department of Health, and described as a "comprehensive and state of the art" assessment of pandemic planning, based its risk rating on one statistic - the number of flu pandemics that took place in the 20th century. With three pandemics in the past 100 years, the probability is an annual risk of 3 per cent, it concluded.
However, the report also admits that medical experts who took part in the global study put the risk of a bird flu pandemic in Britain at 5 per cent, while non-medical experts concluded it was as high as 20 per cent.
Prof John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary's College in London, said: "It is a very risky strategy for the Government to opt for the lowest risk assessment possible. When you insure your house you don't just go for the cheapest option, you go for the one that gives you enough cover."
He said the stocks of antiviral drugs, such as Tamiflu and Relenza, should be doubled.
The current stockpile covers 25 per cent of the population, although the Government admits that the lethal virus could infect twice as many people.
Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said that it was "astonishing" that government plans were based on "meaningless" statistics.
"The Government needs to do more than look at history to make its plans," he said. "All the evidence is that the circumstances that would lead to a pandemic are significantly higher now, especially with this persistent new strain of avian flu, which is widespread in the bird population."
The Treasury is discussing with the Department of Health whether to increase the number of antiviral drugs, which could be used to treat infected people or those who had come into contact with them.
Last week, a deal for "sleeping contracts" to develop sufficient vaccine to protect the whole population was signed.
However, work on the vaccine cannot start until a specific strain of flu has been identified, leaving a time lag of several months during which the virus could spread rapidly.
Since 2003, 192 people have died around the world from the H5N1 strain of bird flu. In February this year, Britain suffered its first big scare when the disease was found in poultry at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk.
The NHS contingency plans warn that a pandemic could kill as many as 750,000 people in Britain.
Documents released alongside the risk assessment predict that hospitals would be overwhelmed, with one per cent of the population needing up to 10 days of intensive care.
That would require 100 times more beds than are available.
Dr Bruce Taylor, the honorary secretary of the Intensive Care Society and the author of NHS guidelines on how critical care departments should react to an avian flu outbreak, said: "There are not enough beds for the population as it is. We have built plans on the ability of hospitals to escalate their services so that they can provide ventilators and very basic intensive care but I would expect hospitals to be overwhelmed."
A spokesman for the Department of Health said that the report from the global summit was "not scientifically robust" and that experts had been consulted by the ministry before the 3 per cent prediction was produced.
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