MOSCOW, January 18 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian ministry issued a dire warning Wednesday that between 18% and 20% of the population could be infected with bird flu if a pandemic were to hit the country.
An analytical center working for the Emergency Situations Ministry forecasted that 27 million out of the country's population of 148 million could fall ill if the pandemic type of avian influenza emerged. Analysts were particularly concerned about potential threats emerging at airports receiving flights from China in such densely populated cities as Moscow and St. Petersburg in European Russia, and Vladivostok and Khabarovsk in the Far East.
Experts added that a pandemic of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu might become a national security threat in 2006 since the virus could mutate and become more contagious.
The ministry said that, according to the data from the World Health Organization, a new type of the virus may emerge in the next years and the human immune system might be unable to resist it, which would lead to an increase in death rates.
Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said his ministry and other departments would take every possible measure to prevent a pandemic. He said the most important task was to monitor and forecast emergency situations in the biological and social sphere.
Deputy Minister Yury Vorobyov said the ministry would conduct a special exercise in February to practice measures to prepare for a bird flu epidemic.
"The exercise will be held on February 20-21," Vorobyov said. "It will focus on the actions of all services included in the nationwide system for the prevention and management of emergency situations in the event of a bird flu epidemic."
He said ministry experts predicted there would be a high risk of an avian flu outbreak in Russia in spring 2006 as migrating birds flew into the country.
