U.S. Efforts Might Not Slow Pandemic Flu

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U.S. Efforts Might Not Slow Pandemic Flu By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP

Science Writer Wed Apr 26, 9:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON - If pandemic influenza hits in the next year or so, the

few weapons the United States has to keep it from spreading will do

little, a new computer model shows.

A pandemic flu is likely to strike one in three people if nothing is

done, according to the results of computer simulation published in

Thursday's journal Nature. If the government acts fast enough and has

enough antiviral medicine to use as preventive dosings — which the

United States does not — that could drop to about 28 percent of the

population getting sick, the study found.

" Both cases we came up with were very pessimistic, " said lead author

Neil Ferguson of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at

Imperial College in London. " There is no single magic bullet for

stopping pandemic flu. "

So far this year, H5N1 bird flu — which is not yet pandemic flu

because it doesn't move easily between people — has infected 204

people and killed 113, according to the World Health

Organization. Most of the human cases and deaths have been in Asia,

but birds with the disease have been found in Europe.

Ferguson's computer simulation is the second released this month and

is more pessimistic than one led by Germann of Los Alamos

National Laboratory, who said the flu could be less infectious and

that efforts could slow it a bit.

Measures such as closing schools to halt breeding grounds and the use

of the antiviral Tamiflu could reduce the disease's toll, Ferguson

said. But efforts to stop flu from entering American borders —

usually on planes with sick passengers — won't work, he said. At

most, they can buy a couple of weeks of delay before the disease sets

in, he said.

If the United States were like Britain and had enough antiviral

medicine for one quarter of the population to be used before people

get sick, computer models show that the number of people getting sick

would drop from about 102 million to about 84 million in America,

Ferguson said.

Bill Hall, spokesman for Department of Health and Human Services,

said his agency has 28 million courses of the antiviral (9.3 percent

of the U.S. population), but acknowledged that on hand, there's only

enough medicine for 5 million people (1.7 percent). The other 23

million courses are on order and should arrive by the end of the

year. The plan is to have 81 million courses (27.1 percent) by 2008,

he said.

One course of treatment for people involves ten doses.

" Twenty-five percent doesn't go very far and we don't have anywhere

near that, " said study co-author Burke, professor of

international health and epidemiology at s Hopkins University's

School of Public Health. " If it does occur before we have enough drug

and enough vaccine, then the epidemic will have a substantial impact. "

If a country gets enough Tamiflu for half its population, it could

then act aggressively in dosing families of flu-struck patients and

that could cut the flu attack rate by 75 percent, Ferguson said. So

instead of 102 million infected people in the U.S., it would be 33

million.

But even Germann, who conducted the more optimistic study, said no

one knows which computer model is closer to reality.

" It would have to be a very weak pandemic strain for us to be able to

stop it right now, " Germann said this week. " Most likely we wouldn't

be completely prepared. "

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