‘No society will escape deadly flu pandemic’

A DEADLY new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be “incalculable” unless the world is ready, the chief of the UN health agency said yesterday.

The World Bank put the possible economic cost at a minimum of €675 billion.

"We have been experiencing a relentless spread of avian flu" among migratory birds and domestic poultry, Lee Jong-wook, director- general of the World Health Organisation, told a meeting of 600 health experts and planners, the first attempt to devise a global strategy in case the bird flu virus changes to transmit easily between humans.