An influenza pandemic is likely to affect every country, leaving millions dead and more than a quarter of the worlds population ill, the World Health Organisation said yesterday. And no vaccines will be available until next March, at least.

An outbreak of bird flu has killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam this year will be the most likely cause of the pandemic, but it is not clear when it would start,said Dr Klaus Stohr, who coordinates the WHO's global influenza programme.

He predicted that more than a quarter of the world's estimated 6.4 billion people would fall ill.

There are estimates that put the number of deaths in the range of between 2 million and 7 million, and the number of people affected will go beyond a billion because 25 to 30 per cent will fall ill," he told reporters at a meeting of health ministers and officials from 13 Asian nations here.
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"An influenza pandemic would spread globally and every country would be affected," Dr Stohr said. The WHO has sounded similar warnings during two waves of bird flu outbreaks across Asia this year. Dr Stohr said two American firms are developing vaccines for testing.

Officials have said a vaccine would not prevent a pandemic but could save millions of lives. "Every hundred years, there have been three or four pandemics," he said. "There's going to be another. Whether it happens this year or next, we don't know." At least 20 million died in the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.