Britain's plan to cope with a human outbreak of bird flu is among the best in the world, a government scientist said on Saturday. Professor Roy Anderson, an authority on infectious diseases at Imperial College London, told BBC Radio the Department of Health had prepared well and was backed up by a "very strong" scientific community in the study of epidemics.
"I had the privilege ... of chairing a G7 meeting on preparedness plans in the summer of this year and my own personal view was that our plans were as good as, if not better, than any other of the G7 countries," he said.
Since 2003, more than 60 people have died of bird flu in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia and another two people showing symptoms of the virus died in Vietnam in the past week.
Britain has had its first contact with the disease after one, and possibly two, birds with the deadly H5N1 strain died in quarantine. At least 32 other birds that died in captivity are now being tested. Anderson said the risk existed that if a person with human flu became infected with bird flu, a resultant strain could combine "the bird flu virus (with) the transmissibility of the human virus".
"That's the worst option," he said. "These events are the events that typically trigger new global pandemics in the human species."