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Flu Pandemic Is "Inevitable," EU Experts Warn

Spain Records Its First Case, More Fatalities in Indonesia, Egypt

July 7, 2006

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A global flu pandemic that could kill millions remains "inevitable" although the immediate threat to human health from bird flu in Europe remains low, European Union officials say.

Meanwhile, Spain reported its first cases of bird flu and experts warned that the risk of bird flu re-entering the United Kingdom will be higher between August and November, when wild fowl are migrating.

"It's when and not if," Robert Madelin, director-general of the EU's health and consumer protection department, said in Brussels. He cited scientists' predictions suggesting a pandemic could kill two million to seven million people worldwide, ten times the death rate from regular flu.

In its latest estimate, the World Bank said a flu outbreak could kill up to 70 million people worldwide, causing global economic losses of as much as $2 trillion.

Since late 2003, the strain of bird flu known as the H5N1 virus is known to have infected at least 229 people, mainly in Asia, killing 131 of them, the Geneva-based World Health Organization said.

Spain's Agriculture Ministry reported its first case of H5N1 bird flu Friday. The strain was found in a wild great crested grebe outside the northern city of Vitoria, the ministry said in a statement.

A protective area was set up around the area where the bird was found. Poultry farming is prohibited in protected areas, which include marshlands where migratory birds tend to gather.

Indonesian Fatality

In Indonesia, the human death toll from the H5N1 strain increased to 41 when a three-year-old girl who died earlier this week tested positive for the virus.

More birds are dying from avian flu in Indonesia because of poor vaccination. particularly in the small-scale and backyard farms, according to the country's Agriculture Ministry.

At least one million fowl died of bird flu in the first three months of the year in Indonesia, government figures indicated. The virus is endemic in about 80 percent of 33 provinces in the Southeast Asian nation.

In Egypt, a seventh person died of H5N1, Cairo's Al-Wafd newspaper reported on its Web site.

U.K. Risk Rises

Great Britain is bracing for a resurgence of bird flu as wild fowl activity picks up between August and November.

"The virus may continue to be introduced in some parts of the EU and eventually arrive in the U.K. because of the potential for limited mixing at some contact points between the existing wild water-bird populations from Eastern Europe with the populations in the EU," the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, known as Defra, said.

Reports of human cases have tended to be highest during the cooler periods in the Northern Hemisphere, the WHO said.

"We have to get used to a seasonal pattern of avian influenza in the coming months and years," said Zsuzsanna Jakab, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. "As long as the virus is endemic in Asia and parts of Africa, it's quite likely it will reappear in Europe."

There have so far been no known cases of the H5N1 flu in the U.S.

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