Brighton and Hove will grind to a halt if a bird flu pandemic hits the city, business leaders have warned.

Thousands of workers and school children would be forced to take up to six months off to fight the virus, leading to economic meltdown, Brighton and Hove Business Forum said.

The organisation has taken advice from the Royal College of Surgeons and believes the threat to the city is real and could affect it within weeks.

Executive director Tony Mernagh said: "The numbers prevented from going to work will be a combination of those infected and those that have to stay at home to look after the infected.

"The virus will spread rapidly in schools and those off work will include those who simply take fright and refuse to go to work.

"It could be as high as 30 per cent of employees off for five to eight working days but for some it could be as long as six months."

Health officials have confirmed there are substantial contingency plans in place for the city and all of Sussex to deal with a bird flu pandemic.

The Department of Health has backed up Brighton and Hove's Business Forum's belief that the virus could strike.

A spokesman said: "We know we are overdue a flu pandemic because every ten or 20 years we have one. We think there will be one soon.

"At the moment people are looking at avian flu as the most likely contender to cause it and that is possible but it would have to mutate into the human form before it spreads.

"It is possible that will happen.

All GPs and strategic health authorities should be prepared for it and will have individual contingency plans."

The forum has urged all businesses and schools to prepare for bird flu and said all organisations should be "preparing for the worst case scenario", even going as far as saying overdrafts should be extended to cope with potential problems.

It said major businesses in the city already have contingency plans in place but said smaller companies could face closure because of a lack of customers if the pandemic strikes.

The forum said: "Trade will be depressed and difficult so making arrangements with banks to extend overdraft facilities to cover a period of reduced trade or late payment could be essential.

"Inevitably independent firms will be the hardest hit and the ones least likely to have made any forward plans.

"Many large firms like HSBC and Boots already have strategies in place to deal with infectious diseases but small companies have yet to address the possibilities of operating in an environment where customers are scarce and possibly scared and so are their staff."

Boots and HSBC confirmed they have plans to cope with the bird flu threat.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006