HEALTH experts in the North-East are to test their ability to cope with a flu pandemic.

Fears that a potentially devastating pandemic -a worldwide epidemic -could hit the UK at any time have prompted the first major exercise to be held in the region.

If the doomsday scenario becomes reality, up to one in four people in the region could contract flu, with thousands dying from it.

Worryingly, the World Health Organisation has described the threat of pandemic flu -probably a mutated form of avian, or bird, flu -as inevitable and imminent.

Hospital bosses are being advised they may have to find extra mortuary space to house victims, as well as find extra body bags.

Family doctors are being told they will have to use scarce vaccines sparingly, immunising those from at-risk groups first, resisting pressure to inject wider groups of patients.

Apart from killing an estimated 0.1 per cent of the population -50,000 across the UK -the flu would severely disrupt everyday life.

Dr David Walker, the acting director of public health for the North-East, said: "It is essential we are prepared nationally and locally for this threat."

A key aim of the planning process is to maintain essential services in the event of a flu pandemic.

Representatives from the NHS, emergency services, social services and local authorities from across the region will be told that a serious flu epidemic has broken out.

Using the National Flu Pandemic Plan, the organisations will be put through their paces.

While the exercise will be confined to "table-top" manouevres, Dr Walker said: "Exercising has already started on a local level, but the big one, which will look at the regional issues, is coming up in September."

To ensure the plan is watertight and flexible, representatives from organisations will be asked to react to different scenarios.

Dr Walker, the director of public health for the County Durham and Tees Valley Strategic Health Authority, said: "Then the scenarios would be taken on to another level and the various spanners that could be thrown into the works will be be thrown in.

"Afterwards, when all the issues have been raised, we take the plans away and tweak them so they can cover all the eventualities we can forsee."

He said the current UK pandemic alert was low.

"At the moment, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission of avian flu, which means there is not a high risk of a pandemic."

The concern is that a new strain of avian flu could mutate so it spreads easily among humans. World Health Organisation experts believe this is inevitable.