Europe not ready for flu pandemic

[Guest guest]

Europe not ready for flu pandemic By Jack Nov 11 2008

Not a single European country is adequately prepared for the threat of

an influenza pandemic, a senior EU disease control official warned on

Monday.

Angus Nicoll, project coordinator for influenza at the European

Centres for Disease Prevention and Control, said Europe was " probably

approaching the halfway marker " and needed at least another two to

three years' work to strengthen local, national and international work.

Governments were still failing to develop adequate plans and responses

to the strains that a pandemic would place on health and other

essential services, and were poorly prepared for cooperation with

their neighbours, he said.

Speaking at Retroscreen's conference to mark the 90th anniversary of

the 1918 " Spanish " flu pandemic, he praised " unprecedented " work since

2005 by EU states in preparing for a pandemic, and stressed there had

not been a single death in the region despite periodic outbreaks of

H5N1 in animals.

But he cautioned over declining political interest in the issue of

pandemic influenza, a decade after the first human deaths linked to

the H5N1 bird flu strain.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ecfe47c2-af53-11dd-a4bf-000077b07658.html