U.S. Begins International Conference on Flu Pandemic Preparedness

CAL/AAEM News Service calaaem_news at yahoo.com
Wed Oct 12 21:50:07 PDT 2005


U.S. Begins International Conference on Flu Pandemic Preparedness

Source: California Healthline (http://www.californiahealthline.org) 
Date: October 7, 2005

 
The federal government on Thursday launched a major organizing effort to
address a possible outbreak of avian flu as the Bush administration, the State
Department and members of Congress crafted strategies for accelerating vaccine
development and ensuring international cooperation, Reuters/Houston Chronicle
reports (Reuters/Houston Chronicle, 10/6). Meetings are being held this week as
part of an international avian flu initiative announced by President Bush at
the U.N. summit in September. The conference is being hosted by the State
Department and involves eight international organizations, HHS, USDA and the
U.S. Agency for International Development (Wall Street Journal, 10/7).

Bush on Thursday met with leading U.S. health and security advisers to discuss
ways to handle a possible pandemic. Earlier this week, the Bush administration
said it is considering a number of plans for handling an outbreak, including
increasing vaccine stockpiles, imposing quarantines and using the military to
enforce compliance (Curl, Washington Times, 10/7).

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for
Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said "basic planning of how to get our
communities through 12 to 18 months of a pandemic" is needed. He added,
"Ninety-five out of 100 will live. But with the nation in crisis, will we have
food and water? Are we going to have police and security? Will people come to
work at all?" Federal health officials said they are "very close to releasing a
final draft of a national pandemic preparedness plan," the Washington Post
reports (Weiss, Washington Post, 10/7).


Meeting With Vaccine Manufacturers
As part of the conference, Bush has scheduled a meeting on Friday at the White
House with U.S. and foreign vaccine manufacturers to discuss production
acceleration (Washington Times, 10/7). The meeting will include the CEOs of
GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Wyeth, Chiron and Merck, among others, a
spokesperson for GSK said. The goal of the meeting will be to "explore ways to
revive and bring the pharmaceutical sector back into the vaccine field,"
according to White House spokesperson Trent Duffy (Reuters/Houston Chronicle,
10/6).

"Avian flu is a global threat that is a serious concern," White House
spokesperson Scott McClellan said (Washington Times, 10/7). He added, "We want
to press ahead to expand our manufacturing capacity to address this risk"
(Neergaard, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/7). According to the Post, vaccine
manufacturers have expressed concerns about liability issues and financial
risks related to the rapid production and emergency distribution of
experimental vaccines.


State Department Meeting
In addition, the State Department on Friday will host a meeting of health
officials from about 80 countries to develop an international strategy for
handling a possible outbreak of avian flu (Washington Post, 10/7). The Bush
administration plans to push the countries participating in the meeting to
increase transparency in reporting and sharing of disease data. Possible
strategies include persuading nations to establish incentives for local
reporting and possibly paying farmers to kill their birds in case of an
epidemic (Wall Street Journal, 10/7).

On Thursday, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said the risk of a pandemic from the
H5N1 avian flu strain is "relatively low," according to scientists and
physicians with whom he has consulted, but he added that if an outbreak occurs,
"We're not prepared as a country. No one is prepared in the world. We're not
alone in this" (Reuters/Houston Chronicle, 10/6). He said that in the event of
an outbreak, U.S. health officials would immediately travel overseas to where
the outbreak occurred and work with local officials to contain the virus. "If
you can get there fast enough and apply good public health techniques of
isolating and quarantining and medicating and vaccinating the people in that
area, you can ... squelch it or you can delay it," Leavitt said
(AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/7).

According to the Post, Leavitt on Saturday is planning to travel to Asia to
discuss international cooperative efforts to combat avian flu. He will meet
with officials from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia, HHS
spokesperson Bill Hall said. Hall added that Leavitt's goal "is to solidify
relationships and express the importance of transparency in surveillance and
sharing of data." Meanwhile, USAID said its top priority currently is avian
flu.


Legislation
Meanwhile, members of Congress are "starting to focus on several bills that
take aim at the looming threat" of a flu pandemic, the Post reports (Washington
Post, 10/7). Senators have developed several bills that "differ from ongoing
administration initiatives by proposing guaranteed markets for flu vaccines,
the appointment of a pandemic preparedness director and stockpiling of far
larger quantities of antiviral drugs than the administration has proposed to do
thus far," CQ HealthBeat reports (CQ HealthBeat [1], 10/6). Sens. Hillary
Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) on Thursday introduced a bill
designed to improve U.S. defenses against avian flu (Harris, New York Times,
10/7).

The bill would increase production of vaccines against seasonal flu as a first
step toward increasing manufacturing capacity; authorize the federal government
to guarantee a market for flu vaccines; establish an electronic tracking system
to determine the availability of flu vaccine and number of high-risk patients
on a county-by-county basis; increase education efforts to improve vaccination
rates; and authorize the HHS secretary to give limited periods of liability
protection to manufacturers and those who administer vaccines. Rodham Clinton
said, "We cannot handle the threats we face today with a broken flu vaccine
system."

A separate measure sponsored in part by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) focuses specifically on the threat of a pandemic and would create a
"Director of Pandemic Preparedness and Response" in the executive office of the
president. The bill also would carry out activities and spending in a Senate
amendment earmarking $4 billion toward preparedness; authorize the federal
government to guarantee a market for flu vaccines; create a final pandemic
preparedness plan focusing on low-income, uninsured and minority populations;
and create an international fund to help control avian flu abroad before it
reaches pandemic potential (CQ HealthBeat [1], 10/6).


Concerns Over Antiviral Drug Supply
In related news, the New York Times on Friday examined how the U.S. delayed its
request to Roche for supplies of the antiviral drug Tamiflu and now "will have
to wait in line to get the pills." Tamiflu is one of the only available
medications proven to reduce the duration and severity of the flu if it is
taken within 48 hours of infection. According to Terence Hurley, a spokesperson
for Roche, 40 countries have ordered Tamiflu to stockpile in case of a
pandemic, with many countries in Europe ordering enough to treat 20% to 40% of
their populations. By contrast, the U.S. is still considering placing its order
for Tamiflu, which would treat less than 2% of the U.S. population.

Hurley said the U.S. has ordered two million courses of the drug, and Roche
will be able to fill that order this year. Some Democrats are expressing
concern that the delay in the federal government's order "has put Americans in
jeopardy," the Times reports. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said, "The
administration has just drug its feet through this whole process." He has urged
legislation to purchase more courses of Tamiflu.

According to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Leavitt has said the U.S. will order
81 million courses of the drug. That amount would be enough to cover more than
25% of the U.S. population, according to the Times (New York Times, 10/7). 


For more information, please visit:
http://www.californiahealthline.org/index.cfm?Action=dspItem&itemID=115104 


Cyrus Shahpar & Brian Potts 
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/



		
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