Bird Flu

Two million Britons could die in the bird flu pandemic that experts warn is both imminent and inevitable, one of the country's leading authorities has told The Independent on Sunday. Professor Hugh Pennington, the president of the Society for General Microbiology and professor emeritus of bacteriology at Aberdeen University, also criticised the the Government's "optimistic" attitude to a potentially devastating pandemic, likening it to official complacency over BSE a decade ago. (...) The World Health Organisation said: "The world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic."

Bird flu could kill 2 million Britons
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
The Independent
13 March 2005