Flu pandemic tops terrorism as U.K. threat

LONDON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- A flu pandemic tops terrorism as Britain's greatest threat, potentially infecting half of Britain's population and killing up to 750,000, officials said Friday.

The National Risk Register, released by Britain's Cabinet Office as part of the government's national security strategy, divides risks into three major categories: natural events, major accidents and malicious attacks.

Other major risks include climate change, flooding, severe weather and attacks on critical national infrastructure.

Deaths from global flu would be on a scale far beyond anything related to a terrorist attack, but terrorism is more likely to occur, the report said. Britain has stockpiled enough doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to treat 25 percent of the population, the report said.

Experts say they cannot predict when the flu pandemic will happen, but when it does it will likely come in three- to six-month waves over a two-year period, The Times of London reported.

A British defense ministry document says a pandemic would generate "unprecedented levels of public fear, stress and panic."

The most serious 20th-century pandemic was the Spanish flu of 1918-1920, which is estimated to have killed more than 40 million people worldwide, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands.