Pandemic threat 'worse than terror'

Twenty-nine people have now died in the UK after contracting swine flu

A swine flu pandemic could be more devastating than a terrorist attack, a police officer has warned as the UK death toll from the virus reached 29.

Superintendent Steve Anderson from West Midlands Police said officers could be forced to stop non-emergency work in a worse case scenario.

He said the force rated swine flu along with terrorism, heatwave and flooding and concluded "a worse case scenario is that pandemic flu would be worse than any of those".

He spoke after it emerged that 26 people have died in England and three in Scotland, including a tourist with significant underlying medical conditions who died at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness on Wednesday night.

The wife of former prime minister Tony Blair, Cherie Blair, has pulled out of a series of public engagements while she battles the virus.

Supt Anderson told Channel 4 News: "We have this thing called a community risk register, which is in effect a who's who list of scary things that could happen in the community.

"And we've assessed each of those based on actually how likely it is to happen, and the impact on communities - and even as bad as terrorism, as bad as heatwave, as bad as flooding can get, a worse case scenario is that pandemic flu would be worse than any of those."

The World Health Organisation announced the swine flu outbreak had become a pandemic on June 11. A disease is classed as a pandemic when it reaches global epidemic proportions, and where the microbe infects and causes serious illness in humans, where humans do not have immunity against the virus, and where the virus spreads easily from person-to-person and survives within humans.

The Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, issued figures on the possible number of people who could die as a result of the current pandemic. The figures are being used by the NHS to help plan its services and show that a 30% infection rate among the population could possibly lead to 65,000 deaths. However, the estimates vary depending on the numbers who end up infected.

Sir Liam also announced details of a National Pandemic Flu Service for England, which should be up and running towards the end of next week. This telephone and internet-based service will enable people to get a diagnosis of swine flu, obtain a unique reference number and gain access to Tamiflu.