Health chiefs believed a pandemic was “imminent” in 1997 and drew up a contingency plan that included a mass vaccination programme and closing borders.
Officials expected a flu pandemic to emerge from the far east and established a UK-wide plan to deal with the health crisis, newly declassified documents have revealed.
The Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety received the Contingency Plan for Pandemic Influenza in March 1997, which also included provisions to close schools.
The plan reads: “The following conditions coexisting suggest that a pandemic is imminent – the emergence of a new strain of influenza virus which has a marked antigenic shift – a new virus; a high proportion of susceptible people in the population, ie with no immunity to the new virus either from vaccination or from previous infection with a similar virus; evidence that the new virus can spread and cause human disease.”
The document continues: “Typically, new shifted strains of influenza virus have emerged in the far east and spread via Asia or the antipodes…
