THE government is to respond to criticism that it has failed to act quickly enough to prepare for a potential flu pandemic by bringing in new measures to tackle the threat.

The initiatives come as scientists confirmed yesterday that the Romanian outbreak nine days ago was caused by the deadly avian flu virus H5N1.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer, is expected to announce on Thursday government plans to buy additional H5N1 flu vaccine or possibly more anti-viral drugs. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is also seeking powers to carry out “firebreak” culls of uninfected birds.

This week, GPs will receive millions of leaflets to distribute explaining the risk of a flu pandemic and the measures the authorities are taking.

The first initiative was taken yesterday by Gordon Brown, the chancellor, who said the government was giving the Medical Research Council an extra £2m to speed up studies into flu.

The Department of Health will also announce its revised pandemic flu contingency plan this week. At the moment, planning is based on 54,000 Britons dying but in June the civil contingency secretariat advised the plan should be able to cope with a death toll of 700,000 — just over 1% of the population.

The new plan is understood to take account of the Civil Contingencies Act which allows the government to introduce emergency powers to safeguard human life. This means people could be confined to their homes and the army used to enforce quarantines.

Defra is to seek powers to cull every flock within two miles of an avian flu outbreak. At the moment, it only has the authority to kill infected flocks.

The move is likely to anger the farming industry, which saw millions of animals culled during the foot and mouth disease outbreak of 2001. But experts believe “pre-emptive” culls are the only way to ensure the virus does not spread.

A meeting of European health ministers in London this week will also discuss how to increase the EU’s stock of anti-viral drugs. Internal EU documents published yesterday show how unprepared most countries are for avian flu.

Official estimates suggest the EU has enough anti-viral drugs to vaccinate only 10% of the population. The World Heath Organisation advised nations last year they should stockpile enough drugs to treat at least a quarter of their population.

The most effective drugs at present are Tamiflu, made by Roche, or Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline.

In March, Britain became the third country to place an order with Roche — three months behind the French. However, the order for 14.5m doses is unlikely to be fulfilled until September 2006. The country currently has stocks of about 2m doses, mainly reserved for key government and emergency workers.

However, according to evidence from Tokyo university H5N1 is showing signs of developing resistance to Tamiflu.

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