As many as 320,000 people could die from the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus if it mutated into a form that could easily be passed among humans, according to reports.
The report also said such large number of deaths would delay burial or cremation, because the local government is capable of handling just 48,000 deaths in the UK in a pandemic that would last 15 weeks, according to the paper.
This would force authorities to resort to mass burials, similar to the mass burial pits employed in when more than 70,000 people died in London due to the plague.
The governmental report added that bird flu vaccines "should not be seen as a silver bullet solution and will not be available in the first wave of a pandemic."
