Feds say don't count on us in flu pandemic

WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday released a report on the nation's lack of preparedness for a bird-flu pandemic, warning such an outbreak could kill up to 2 million people and deal a warlike blow to the country's economic and social fabric. It urged state and local governments to make their own preparations beyond the federal efforts.

In the government's first detailed look at the potential impact on public health and U.S. society, the report said a pandemic could lead to travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines, massive absenteeism, an economic slowdown "and civil disturbances and breakdowns in public order."

It warned that the health-care system is inadequate to meet the country's needs in a flu pandemic: "In the event of multiple simultaneous outbreaks, there may be insufficient medical resources or personnel to augment local capabilities."

More broadly, state, local and tribal governments should "anticipate that all sources of external aid may be compromised during a pandemic," it said, meaning "local communities will have to address the medical and nonmedical effects of the pandemic with available resources."

While warning that as a last resort, mandatory travel restrictions may be necessary, such limits alone "are unlikely to reduce the total number of people who become ill or the impact the pandemic will have on any one community."

Influenza pandemics strike every few decades when a never-before-seen strain arises. It's impossible to predict when the next will occur or what its toll would be. But last fall, amid concern that the H5N1 strain of bird flu might lead to a pandemic if it mutates to a form that can be spread easily from person to person, President Bush proposed a $7.1 billion, multiyear strategy to prepare for the next pandemic.

There have been no verified incidences of bird flu in either wild birds or domestic poultry in North America, and the spread of the disease from human to human has not been documented.

Michael Osterholm, an expert on disease control who has long warned that the nation is ill-prepared for a bird-flu pandemic, praised the report as "a very important step forward."

"This was a brutally honest, but very fair ... assessment of where we're at," said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, who had no role in preparing the report.

The national pandemic-response strategy is built around three concepts: preparation, surveillance and detection, and containment. The report listed more than 300 steps it said the administration would take, had begun to take or would recommend that state and local governments pursue.

In a cover letter, Bush said the government had made "major investments in vaccine and anti-viral development, research into the influenza virus, surveillance for disease in animals and humans, and the local state and federal infrastructure necessary to respond to a pandemic."

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report