Wales : Avian flu still likely to strike in humans, says Welsh expert

Via Wales Online :

" THE threat of bird flu crossing over to humans and igniting a pandemic remains real, one of Wales’ leading experts on health and disaster management has claimed.

Alan Hawley, who until recently was the UK’s Director General of Army Medical Services, said climate change and international food scarcity has the potential to spread social and economic chaos across the globe.

His comments follow the decision of the Assembly Government to reduce the surveillance of live wild birds for avian influenza. Instead, attention will be focused on dead birds.

However, Prof Hawley said bird flu is not the greatest threat to Wales and the world.

The former major general, who is now the University of Glamorgan’s professor of disaster studies, described the Assembly Government’s decision to narrow the field of monitoring as “quite sensible”."