FLU ALERT: Deadly global pandemic will be UNSTOPPABLE due to travel, warn experts in Davos
A FUTURE global pandemic will be “unstoppable” in a world with so much international travel, experts have warned a century after the Spanish flu outbreak killed millions of people.
By LAURA MOWAT
Express.co.uk
Sun, Jan 28, 2018
The concerns, which were raised last week at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, come 100 years after the 1918 influenza claimed 50 million lives.
The experts said that a mutated flu virus could be the biggest threat as it can join together with other strains to become deadly.
Elhadj As Sy, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said: “Pandemics are becoming a real threat to humanity.”
“Humanity is more vulnerable in the face of epidemics because we are much more connected and we travel around much more quickly than before.”
The experts were speaking at Davos in a discussion called ‘Are we Ready For The Next Pandemic?”
Dr Briand also said: “The flu is a respiratory virus that is easily transmitted and people can be contagious even before they show symptoms, so it is not easy to control.”
He said that its various forms are able to bond with viruses from birds or pigs in potentially deadly new combinations.
This comes as US health officials have revealed that more Americans are seeking medical care for flu than at any time since the “swine” pandemic of nearly ten years ago.
Some hospitals have been so burdened with patients that they have been treating people in car parks.
The most recent epidemic to receive international aid attention was in Madagascar when 200 people were killed during the outbreak.
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