Killer pig flu threat to UK: BA crew member rushed to hospital as 81 die in outbreak

Last updated at 1:34 AM on 26th April 2009

• Pig flu virus may have killed 81 people
• 1,300 others thought to have been infected
• BA crew member on Mexico flight rushed to hospital
• Source of the outbreak is not yet known
  
• Travellers with symptoms warned to contact GP
  
• Tamiflu and Relenza both effective against the
  
• illness

Fears are growing that a deadly human strain of 'swine flu' that has claimed 81 lives in Mexico has arrived in Britain.

A British Airways cabin crew member yesterday complained of 'flu-like symptoms' midway through a flight to Heathrow from Mexico City, where the virus first surfaced.

Last night the unnamed man, understood to be a British national, was in isolation in a West London hospital and was being treated by staff trained in infectious disease controls.

Earlier, panic spread throughout Mexico, where those who died were reported to be the first victims of a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

Experts said the virus posed the biggest threat of a pandemic since bird flu began to spread in 2003.

That has killed 256 people in 15 countries.

-snip-