UNTOLD numbers of sufferers will be confined to their own homes in the event of a flu pandemic taking grip in Britain, The Times has learnt.

Patients with serious breathing problems will be treated in hospital but the Government’s strategy for the vast majority of the sick is enforced home quarantine.

In a further drastic measure, anyone caught exposing others to the risk of infection will face summary prosecution under emergency regulations in the Public Health Act.

Armed troops would be used on the streets only as a last resort as ministers have made clear that they do not want afflicted communities treated in the same way as the 17th-century villages gripped by the Great Plague.

Police, however, would have a key public order role and would guard supplies of anti-viral drugs and vaccines.

Once a vaccine has been developed, walk-in vaccination centres have been planned but they will be subject to strict queueing rules to minimise the risk of turning them into contamination zones. Scientific experts have said that a minimum two-metre gap is required between individuals to prevent the spread of the virus through droplets.

Schools would be kept open unless there was a particular threat to the young, because the country would need working parents to keep the emergency services running.

A leaflet giving key facts about the virus and advice on self-help would be given to every household, and a television advertising campaign would be run during the emergency. Healthy people, however, would be expected to carry on with their day-to-day lives.

Details of how the country would cope with a flu pandemic emerged as scientists and public health experts prepared to gather in Geneva next week for a three-day World Health Organisation summit on dealing with the deadly avian flu virus H5N1 and its possible human form.

Despite claims from the Conservatives that Britain is lagging behind in preparations, officials have spent more than a year fine-tuning emergency arrangements.

Some controls are already in place. Airline companies have been called in by the Department of Transport (DoT) and told not to carry sick passengers, particularly from South-East Asia, where the H5N1 virus has killed 68 human beings and 125 million birds.

Air companies have the legal right to withhold travel from any passenger, and a number of British people have already been turned away until their health has recovered.

However, the flu virus takes 24 to 48 hours to incubate so unless airline staff spot obvious symptoms they are unlikely to identify sufferers. Port health authority staff have been told to look out for travellers feeling sick on arrival in the UK. New posters are also planned for airports to remind passengers not to travel if they are feeling ill.

The DoT has also reconvened an airline committee set up to deal with the threat of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) to monitor the threat of avian flu.

In China the authorities have already ordered passengers to be screened to check whether they have flu. GPs are also on alert to identify unusual and extreme flu symptoms in their patients. A handful of people with acute respiratory problems are already in hospital under surveillance.

Vets, too, have been asked to monitor cases of the usual seasonal avian flu in dead birds.

At present six tests from birds killed by low pathogenic avian flu are being analysed by the Veterinary Laboratory Agency in Weybridge.

The Government has been in touch with leading banks and food, water, gas and electricity companies to ensure that vital services can continue even if as many as a quarter of staff are off sick.

Gas and electricity companies are keeping retired engineers and maintenance workers on standby to help out in an emergency, while many companies are training extra staff to cope with computer problems.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• The Japanese Prime Minister is doomed: or is he?
• Brighton company 'involved in cyber attack'
• The art of survival: it's all in the mind