BMJ  2007;334 (10 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.39119.594676.43

Editor's Choice

Editor's choice

Bird flu and transparency

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Last week's outbreak of H5N1 avian flu in turkeys in England brings the threat of pandemic flu psychologically if not actually closer to western Europe. And although WHO and others are rightly playing down the risks of a pandemic, they are also rightly preparing for one. But what are the right local and global priorities?

Clinical guidance is the easy bit. New guidelines published in the BMJ's sister journal Thorax and summarised in a BMJ editorial this week (doi: 10.1136/bmj.39101.628715.80) advise rapid diagnosis, prompt administration of antivirals, and readiness to give antibiotics if symptoms worsen.

Far harder will be to prepare—psychologically and actually—for making these clinical decisions within what are euphemistically termed "limited resources." As our editorialists say, this will require triage and difficult ethical decisions. The UK has established a committee on ethical aspects of pandemic influenza (CEAPI), which should soon be offering its own guidance.

And . . . [Full text of this article]

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