Business leaders have warned that an epidemic of bird flu is inevitable and will devastate the economy.

Scientists believe the virus would be most likely to visit Sussex through infected birds using the UK as a stopping off point during migration in April.

Tony Mernagh, executive director of the Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership, said: "We all hope that it wont happen. But the World Heath Organisation has indicated that it is a matter of when not if for an avian flu pandemic."

Avian flu is transmissible to humans only from close contact with infected birds but experts believe the virus could soon develop the ability to pass from human to human.

It is estimated that about 30 per cent of the population could catch bird flu and be ill for up to two weeks but around 50,000 vulnerable people could die.

Mr Mernagh said: "Late spring is a few months away. Ill people will not be able to work but neither will the well people that have to care for them.

"Add to this the people that may just decide that it is too risky to go about their normal business and it adds up to an exceptionally large part of the workforce that simply wont be working or consuming. And absenteeism will be spread across every sector of society and the economy."

Mr Mernagh called on small independent companies to start preparing contingency plans by speaking to their bank managers about emergency overdraft facilities and flexibility on loan repayments.

Mr Mernagh said: "Bird flu will lay low the workforce but a companys overheads will continue to demand payment. A small shop with three staff might find one of them is ill for two weeks and one of them is off looking after sick children and turnover has declined.

"But the landlord still wants the rent and the Government still wants the rates. How long would they be able to survive?"

An influenza epidemic contingency plan is available on the Economic Partnership web site www.brightonbusiness.co.uk
Monday, January 30, 2006