Bush to announce US bird flu plan
Bush to announce US bird flu plan
Maggie Fox
Reuters/Washington
A U.S. plan for helping handle a pandemic of deadly bird flu, to
be outlined by President George W. Bush later on Tuesday
(Wednesday morning in Jakarta), is expected to center on
strengthening the vaccine industry.
The H5N1 avian flu sweeping flocks of poultry in Asia and
parts of Europe has infected 122 people and killed 62, but
experts say it could make a leap into humans and cause a deadly
pandemic.
No one can predict if or when, but the World Health
Organization (WHO) has warned that no country is prepared to
battle a pandemic of H5N1 influenza or any other disease that may
cause widespread disruption.
The United States is especially poorly prepared, U.S.
officials agree, although experts have been warning for years of
the potential for a pandemic.
Hospitals are often filled to overflowing already and have no
extra "surge capacity" to handle the hundreds of thousands of
people who might fall ill in a pandemic. Pharmacies have just
enough stock to handle immediate demand for drugs, and, perhaps
worst of all, hardly anyone makes vaccines any more.
In 2003 the Institute of Medicine, an independent body that
advises the federal government, said the U.S. health care system
does not place enough value on immunization.
In the 1970s more than 25 companies produced vaccine for the
U.S. market, compared to five now, only two of which are based in
the United States.
Recent vaccine shortages have disrupted annual influenza
immunization efforts and childhood vaccines. The technology for
making flu vaccines is 40 years old, dependent on eggs, and takes
months to produce a single dose.
Vaccine makers say the American market is perilous, with
razor-thin profits, complicated regulations and an increasingly
hostile public prone to lawsuits over adverse events from
vaccination.
The Bush administration has made some efforts to remedy this,
but an attempt in 2002 to slip provisions protecting vaccine
makers into the Homeland Security Act were immediately decried by
both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
Last month Bush met with the chief executive officers of some
of the corporate vaccine makers. They included Merck & Co. Inc.,
Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline, MedImmune, Chiron Corp. and sanofi
pasteur, the vaccine unit of Sanofi-Aventis.