Winging It - Preparing for BF

 

April 1, 2006, 7:00PM

WINGING IT

While bird flu news evolves, government gives good tips on preparing for disaster — any disaster

Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

It had to be expected after the absurdity of the color-coded terror alerts. But judging from late-night TV and reported grocery store sales, recent pandemic advice from the Health and Human Services Department is prompting mainly skepticism or apathy. In fact, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt offered individuals just the right approach as avian flu sails inexorably westward.

In

an unusually pointed recommendation this month, Leavitt offered citizens a sort of pandemic shopping list. "When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed," he advised the March 13 Wyoming Pandemic Flu Summit. "When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk. Put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food. And that's what we're talking about."

With its practicality and embrace of routine, Leavitt's advice underlines two truths about avian flu. One: If it does turn pandemic, citizens have the responsibility to feed themselves and minimize contagion by temporarily staying home. Two: Avian flu may never pose a threat in this community. But some micro-organism, madman or weather system probably will.

By now, it's clear that international monitoring of the H5N1 strain is well justified. Though it has killed only 106 humans worldwide, the strain already has two of the three necessary weapons for a pandemic: the ability to jump from birds to humans and the power to cause fatal illness.

Though its presence has been traced in animals for about nine years, H5N1 hasn't mutated into a form transmissible between humans. It would take a major change to move from person to person. The virus resides, though, in millions of birds, and each new infection represents another chance for lethal mutation. If it did mutate, and no matching vaccine were available, some projections suggest half of all Americans could contract the potentially deadly flu in three months.

A few developments are starting to mitigate this frightening scenario. This week, researchers showed that a bird flu vaccine works on about half of those who are infected. But the dosage would be 12 times greater than a normal flu shot, and current manufacturing abilities couldn't create the needed amount of vaccine.

In any case, even a perfect, abundant vaccine warding off bird flu right now might be useless on a pandemic mutation. Meanwhile, Houston — with nationally recognized communication and disaster protocols — still lacks emergency room beds and equipment for nonpandemic medical needs.

The migration of bird flu should drive correction of these hospital infrastructure weaknesses, both at state and national levels. Similarly, this is the time for the federal government to pour grant money into research on new vaccine technologies that can fight a whole spectrum of flu strains. Congress can also encourage more vaccine makers with tax breaks.

But, as Secretary Leavitt implied in his shopping list, citizens must accept that pandemic avian flu will in any scenario demand individual resourcefulness. It may be bird flu that shutters our stores, causes utilities to be shut down and hampers access to potable water. It might be another disaster. One week's worth of food, drinking water and first-aid supplies is a good minimum precaution for all households that can afford it. It's the equivalent of a full gas tank on a long, unknown highway.

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