'Inevitable' flu pandemic will kill 50 million

The Mail Online, on 21st July 2008, reports on the UK’s House of Lords saying that Britain was facing an inevitable flu pandemic that will kill millions. It says,

Britain is facing an 'inevitable' and 'devastating' flu pandemic which will kill up to 75,000 people, a government committee revealed today.

The outbreak – most likely a strain of bird flu which could claim the lives of up to 50 million worldwide – will be on a scale not seen for decades.

The pandemic will require an ‘urgent’ response to prevent the rapid spread of infection, the powerful House of Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee warned.

And the Lords also attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘dysfunctional’ and lacking the ‘organisation and resources’ to curb a major outbreak.

The next pandemic will kill between two and 50 million people worldwide and a fair fraction of that in the UK, it said.

Echoing the report, the Government said: ‘While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable.

Does ‘inevitable’ mean soon or just one day in the far future? It is ‘inevitable’ the Sun will go out, one day. Doesn’t mean we should panic.