Severe flu pandemic could kill 63,000 in Scotland, says official study

Severin Carrell - The Guardian

22 Jul, 2009

A severe flu pandemic could kill more than 63,000 people in Scotland within a few weeks and overwhelm mortuaries and crematoriums, an official study has concluded.

The document, released to the Guardian under freedom of information regulations, also warns that at least 5,100 people in Scotland could die even if the flu virus was relatively mild and infected only a quarter of the population.

It warns that mortuaries, crematoriums and cemeteries could be forced to operate round the clock, with old warehouses, council buildings, refrigerated lorries and specialist inflatable mortuaries being requisitioned to temporarily store the dead.

The previously unpublished study was written last year to help councils and health authorities plan for a pandemic, before swine flu hit the UK, leaving at least 31 people dead and infecting an estimated 85,000 people since April.

The Scottish government's study bases its mortality estimates on four scenarios ranging from a relatively mild flu virus infecting 25% of the population and killing 0.37% of those infected, to an "exceptional" and more lethal pandemic affecting half the population.

The relatively mild virus would leave about 5,100 dead, a figure that is very close to the 0.35% mortality rate used to make last week's worst-case prediction that swine flu could kill 65,000 across the UK this winter.

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