Swine flu: the race against time

Britain's preparedness for the swine flu epidemic has been thrown into question by two reports. First, the vaccine to protect the public against the new flu will apparently not be available by August, as promised recently by the government. Second, without a vaccine, the death rate could reach one in 200 of those contracting the virus badly enough to seek medical help. At a projected rate of 100,000 new sufferers a day, that could mean 500 deaths a day if the vaccine is not available in large quantities and soon.

The vaccine delay was raised by Dr Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation, in an interview with the Guardian. "There's no vaccine," she said. "One should be available soon, in August. But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that has been proven safe. Clinical trial data will not be available for another two to three months."

Dr Chan's remarks undermine a recent claim by the Department of Health that the trials could somehow be "fast-tracked" in a matter of days.

The Guardian also reported that Dr Alan Hay, director of the WHO's London-based World Influenza Centre, believes the Department of Health needed to be prepared for a more deadly form of the disease.

"We have been a little surprised by the degree of spread of this virus," said Hay, one of the world's most respected flu experts. "A few weeks ago we anticipated that this was going to be a short series of outbreaks that would probably peter out before reappearing in the autumn or winter and that has proved not to be the case."

The one-in-200 - or 0.5 per cent - death rate warning comes from a team at Imperial College, London. Questioned by a shocked Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight on Tuesday, the government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, could not discount the Imperial College statistics.

These latest warnings, which suggest that the Government and the vaccine manufacturers are in a race against time if high death rates are to be avoided, follow a report from scientists at the University of Wisconsin whose research shows that the new strain of flu is more serious than regular seasonal flu because it penetrates deeper into the lungs.

Meanwhile, the English GP, Michael Day, who was thought to have died from swine flu last week, turns out to have died as a result of other natural causes, according to police. A post-mortem is still awaited on the death of six-year-old Chloe Buckley who also died last week after contracting the virus and, according to friends and family, had previously been in good health.