A mutated form of bird flu crossing over to humans could kill as many as 150 million people, the newly appointed U.N. bird-flu coordinator warned, DPA reported. "The range of deaths could be anything from 5 (million) to 150 million," Dr. David Nabarro said Thursday after U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed him to head up efforts to control the bird-flu outbreak in Asia. Bird flu appeared on the continent in 2003, sweeping through poultry populations and killing tens of million of birds. About 62 people had died from it as well after having close contact with live infected birds. At this point, humans can not pass the disease to one another, but experts said the likelihood of the virus mutating to do just that is high, leading to the appointment of Nabarro, a top public-health expert at the World Health Organization. "The work done on prevention and preparedness over the next few months would make the difference between, for example, whether the next pandemic led in the direction of 150 million (dead) or in the direction of 5 million," he said while unveiling a plan of action to fight the disease that focuses on prevention, preparedness and a response to an outbreak. He said he was working with governments, private organizations and scientists across the globe to plan for a human epidemic and raise awareness of the disease, adding that the number of deaths would depend on where the outbreak occurred, the speed at which it was discovered and the quality of the response. Nabarro warned about the deadly consequences for countries with low-quality or limited health care as well as ones that did not share information on the disease with their own people and the international community. "We expect the next great influenza pandemic to come at any time now," said Nabarro, pointing to the 1918 flu epidemic, which killed more than 40 million people and saying he believed an epidemic was overdue. He added that a new outbreak was likely to cause great social and economic disruption. "Prevention, preparedness, response: That's what we've all got to do," he said.
