Tam Dalyell seems satisfied that the minister for communicable diseases is "keeping a very close eye on the [flu] situation" in Asia (15 January, p 49).
I am not. If avian flu mutates into a form that is transmissible between humans, as it might, we will need a vaccine and antiviral drugs in huge quantities. As far as I am aware, we have neither the existing stocks nor the facilities to produce either of them quickly, in anything like the amounts needed.
After the lesson of the tsunami, the death toll of which would have been much lower had governments done their jobs properly, we should not allow ourselves to be caught out by the next long-predicted natural catastrophe that might hit us.
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