Human bird flu victims face end in 'plague pits' , by
David Cracknell
FAMILIES may have to wait for four months to bury their dead in the event of an avian flu pandemic, stirring up folk memories of the burial pits of the great plague of 1665.
A confidential Home Office report says as many as 320,000 people could die from the H5N1 strain of the virus if it mutates into a form that can readily be passed between humans.
It says the emergency services may have to enforce mass burial. “Common [mass] burial stirs up images of the burial pits used in the great plague of 1665 — where in London 70,000 people died,” it adds.
The report, Managing Excess Deaths in an Influenza Pandemic, dated March 22, says vaccines against bird flu should not be seen as a “silver bullet” solution and “will not be available in the first wave of a pandemic [possibly longer]”.
David Cracknell
FAMILIES may have to wait for four months to bury their dead in the event of an avian flu pandemic, stirring up folk memories of the burial pits of the great plague of 1665.
A confidential Home Office report says as many as 320,000 people could die from the H5N1 strain of the virus if it mutates into a form that can readily be passed between humans.
It says the emergency services may have to enforce mass burial. “Common [mass] burial stirs up images of the burial pits used in the great plague of 1665 — where in London 70,000 people died,” it adds.
The report, Managing Excess Deaths in an Influenza Pandemic, dated March 22, says vaccines against bird flu should not be seen as a “silver bullet” solution and “will not be available in the first wave of a pandemic [possibly longer]”.
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