A vaccine available right now could help save lives in a future bird flu pandemic, UK scientists claim. A jab against one strain of avian flu, given years earlier, may "prime" the immune system to fight a wide range of bird flu strains. When the pandemic arrives, "pre-vaccinated" people could then be given a booster shot, and be protected far quicker, said researchers.

Assessment of the likelihood and potential impact of a range of different risks that may directly affect the UK ...

A new report from the British government ranks pandemic influenza very high on the list of major security threats to the United Kingdom. The National Risk Register, prepared by Britain's Cabinet Office, depicts pandemic flu as the biggest threat in terms of potential impact on the country, well above such risks as terrorist attacks, coastal flooding, and major industrial accidents. It says a pandemic could infect as much as half of the British population and kill as many as 750,000. The 52-page report portrays a pandemic as somewhat less likely than terrorist attacks on transport and crowded places but just slightly less likely than severe weather. The report does not suggest a numeric probability for any given event, but it portrays the comparative likelihood and impacts of various threats on a graph.

In its first published rating of the potential threats facing Britain’s 60 million people, the government said on Friday that a flu pandemic, not a terrorist attack, was likely to have the greatest impact. The assessment came in a report known as the National Risk Register, ordered by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as part of an effort to enhance Britain’s readiness to deal with threats to national security. The document was compiled on the basis of previously classified estimates from a wide variety of government departments, including MI5, the domestic intelligence agency. A flu pandemic was rated only fifth in a list of the most likely threats but first in terms of its public impact. The assessment said that half of the population, about 30 million people, could be infected, that up to a million of them might need hospital care, and that 50,000 to 750,000 might die ... Also put ahead of a flu pandemic in the report’s list of most likely threats were a terrorist attack in a crowded place and a bout of severe weather. Coastal flooding as a result of climate change was considered to be the second most damaging threat, after a flu pandemic. Severe inland flooding was listed to be about as likely as a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack by terrorists.

A top U.S. health official says the threat of a flu pandemic remains high. And while the world has made great strides to prepare, it's not enough. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Julie Gerberding says bird flu fatigue among countries and the public is a growing concern.

WHEN an outbreak of the Spanish flu spread worldwide in 1918, a doctor in Newark advised his patients that they could cure their illness with red onions and coffee. In Atlantic City, the authorities closed amusement parks and theaters indefinitely. And in upstate New York, public health officials distributed a poster warning people against “careless spitting, coughing, sneezing.” Those precautions had mixed results, and an estimated 675,000 Americans died during that outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Today, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York are much more prepared than they were 90 years ago in the event that an influenza outbreak turns into a pandemic. But five years after an avian flu outbreak in Asia made pandemic flu planning a priority, some experts are concerned that states have not been equally vigilant about preparing, and as attention and federal financing begin to decrease, they fear that preparedness efforts will slacken. “There is a worry that there was a lot more attention to the issue two or three years ago,” said Richard Hamburg, government relations director for Trust for America’s Health, a Washington-based nonprofit health watchdog. “The fact is that it’s still spreading. There are still cases throughout the world. Preparedness is not a one-shot deal. You don’t know if this will hit this year, next year, five years, 10 years from now.” Federal officials are tracking the flu worldwide, but it is up to cities and states to prepare their own public health plans.