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Leeds, a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England boasts a population of just over 750,000, and is part of the 3rd most populous Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) in the United Kingdom.
Today authorities in Leeds have unveiled their emergency pandemic plan and have submitted it to the Strategic Health Authority for feedback.
Although planners in the UK are using the same 2.5% fatality rate that many other nations incorporate into their pandemic planning, they do so with a difference. They are planning for a 50% clinical attack rate – not the 25%-30% that the United States and other nations are assuming.
The clinical attack rate is the percentage of the population who are sickened by the virus. The assumption is that some people will acquire the infection asymptomatically, or will be protected by a vaccine.
In the 1918 Spanish Flu, only about 30% of the population in the United States and Europe became ill, while it is likely that just about everyone was exposed to the virus.
No one knows, of course, what the attack rate – or the fatality rate- of the next pandemic will really be. These numbers are what Health Authorities consider to be a `reasonable worst-case scenario’.
The UK, with a population of roughly 60 million, could see 30 million sickened, and 750,000 fatalities assuming these assumptions are correct.
This report from the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Leeds plans for 10,000 deaths
10,000 could die in flu pandemic
Published Date:
24 March 2009By Laura Bowyer
HEALTH bosses in Leeds have drawn up a masterplan outlining how the city would cope with a flu pandemic that could claim the lives of 10,000 of its people.
The Department of Health told NHS Leeds to draw up plans in case there was a major outbreak of flu.
The world is closer to another epidemic than at any time since 1968, according to a report to a meeting of NHS Leeds directors.
Dr Ian Cameron, executive director of public health at NHS Leeds, told the meeting the plans assumed the worst.
He said: "We planned for a 50 per cent attack rate which would in terms of primary care mean an increase of 110,000 people requiring help and support."
Dr Cameron also said the plans were drawn up in terms of a 2.5 per cent death rate which would mean around 10,000 extra deaths in Leeds.
- The plan aims to:
- reduce the spread of flu;
- limit the number of deaths from flu;
- slow or limit the spread of infection by supporting health care at home;
- provide vaccination if and when available;
- treat patients rapidly with medication;
- mobilise the skills of all health care staff, including the recently retired, and volunteers.
The report highlights the need to encourage people to care for themselves so the health care system can cope with patients who need treatment.
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