Will you have a place in the bio-bunker?

Ross Clark investigates the government’s plans to deal with a human flu pandemic, and finds that the preparations for mass drug treatment are in a scandalous mess — unless, that is, you are on the right list

In its early days, New Labour was likened to a ‘big tent’, in which there was room not just for the party’s traditional supporters but just about anybody else too. There is one government tent, however, in which there is certainly not yet room for everyone: the tent which offers some protection in the event of an influenza pandemic caused by a human strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus.

In response to this week’s outbreak of avian influenza at a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk, the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, confirmed that the government was very concerned about the risk to ordinary people. ‘We are preparing very, very seriously and thoroughly for the possibility of a pandemic flu,’ Ms Hewitt said.