Schools to close and sport banned if bird flu hits

Emergency plans in the event of a British bird flu pandemic - including closing schools, banning sporting events and dealing with disorder on the streets - are to be announced by ministers this week, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

They will also disclose a contract to buy two and a half million doses of flu vaccine to enable essential workers to operate during the pandemic, and publish a booklet to be sent to every GP on how to combat it.

The move follows yesterday's discovery that the deadly virus has reached Europe for the first time. Tests at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, Surrey, revealed that wild birds in the Danube delta in Romania had died of the H5N1 strain of the disease, which scientists fear will mutate to spread rapidly among people, killing tens of millions worldwide.

The Government believes that a pandemic could kill some 700,000 people in Britain, and that it would be impossible to stop it once it reached the country. The new plans are designed merely to mitigate its worst effects and to try to stop a total breakdown of services and public order.

The plans allow for: closing schools, theatres and public buildings; cancelling mass gatherings such as sporting fixtures; suspending international flights from infected countries; deploying police to deal with public disorder; setting up special centres to dispense the anti-viral drug Tamiflu; and encouraging people to observe basic hygiene.

Ministers accept that some of these measures could involve making hard choices. Closing schools, for example, could result in nurses who are mothers staying at home to look after their children. Suspending flights would lead to massive disruption, and would probably delay the virus's arrival by only a few weeks.

And the plans allow for Tamiflu to be given only to people who have had symptoms of the flu for less than 24 hours. There are medical grounds for this, as this is the period during which it is effective.

Ministers will also announce they have finalised a contract to supply a vaccine to essential workers that they hope would blunt the effects of the disease, although it would not provide complete protection.

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