Experts call for creating US bird flu czar
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The United States needs a top official, backed by authority and cash, to prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic, experts said on Wednesday.
But the United States, and most other countries, are so badly behind in preparing for disease outbreaks in general that it will take years to catch up, they told a briefing of Congressional staffers.
“We need to make sure that in the federal government we have clear leadership,” said Jeffrey Levi of the nonprofit Trust for Americas Health, which sponsored the briefing.
In the meantime, if H5N1 avian flu makes the jump from birds into humans, all that can be done is to minimize damage.
“This virus cannot now be eradicated from the planet,” said Dr. Tara O’Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, based in Baltimore. “It is in too many birds in too many places.”
The especially virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza has been found in Asian flocks from Japan to Indonesia. It has been found in migrating waterfowl in Mongolia and Kazakhstan and officials in Turkey fear it has spread there, although test results are pending.
The virus has infected 117 people in four countries, killing 60, and is steadily mutating. Experts say it is only a matter of time before bird flu changes enough to make it a disease that transmits easily from human to human.
O’Toole said other “pressing issues” should be put aside while preparations for a pandemic are dealt with. “This is a special situation and calls for special organizational measures,” she said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is due to release its pandemic influenza plan any time now, but leaked versions suggest little has been done to prepare a creaky public health system for a devastating outbreak of disease.
Levi said the plan should provide details of how to fund each step. “We are going to need some serious money for us to implement a really good plan for us to be prepared,” he said.
Levi and O’Toole called for public health professionals to staff a new federal office, with expertise in vaccines, drug development and communicating to the public.
At the very least, the experts told the briefing, the United States needs to begin stockpiling antiviral drugs and speed up work on new, quicker ways to make flu vaccine.
But there is only a limited supply of the two drugs known to work against H5N1 avian flu—Gilead and Roche’s oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and GlaxoSmithKline’s zanamivir (Relenza).
Hospitals, already at capacity, will be unable to cope with any surge in patient numbers.
O’Toole said the federal government needs to know who is infected and where and what equipment and supplies are available. Hospitals need to be prepared to care for the sick.
“We will need to protect the well,” she added.
President George W. Bush has called for special measures to use the military to enforce quarantines, and the Pentagon said on Wednesday it was looking at possible scenarios. But the experts said quarantines will not provide much help.
“Quarantines are not going to work in containing influenza,” O’Toole said. “Even if it was possible to cordon off a city…that is not going to contain influenza.”
People become contagious before they even begin to feel sick or show symptoms, and remain contagious long after they feel well. This is called “shedding virus” and it is one reason all types of influenza are so difficult to fight.
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