And if there is a vaccine - which country will benefit ?

Assuming things carry on in there current direction with Swine Flu and at least epidemics, develop, and I'm hoping it doesn't, let me introduce you to the next political hot potato - vaccines, or rather their availability.

If mortality is high, how long will they be tested for ?

Not all countries are equal for flu vaccines.

The UK, I think, has a major production capability. The US doesn't.

Will the EU "order" that all stokpiles of vaccines produced must be equally shared ?

So that could lead to producer countries allowing some of their citizens to suffer so that other countries citizens don't.

Given Gordon Brown's weak caving in over the UK's over paying into the EU budget and its partial refund ( he believed the French would think about changing the EU CAP in exchange for more EUgeld from the UK and took their word for it !! Ha. ) I'd like to send someone else to Brussels to bargain for UK lives.

Of course perhaps the vaccine can only be made in France ( no question how they'll act) or Germany. In which case we'll be in the beggers position.

My guess is they will try to fix this one behind closed doors, and not even tell us about it.

Update: Fox News is now running with this in the US - since the US lacks vaccine manufacturing capacity.

And he said the United States wouldn't necessarily have the upper hand in seeking a hoard of those doses, since much of our vaccine manufacturing is done overseas -- in countries like France, Belgium, Germany and Great Britain.

"That's going to be a very delicate discussion and argument," Halsey said, when asked about how the vaccines could be distributed globally. "The countries where the manufacturing takes place are going to have some say in this."

I say again do you want Gordon Brown negotiating the number of vaccine doses we should keep ?