U.S. Plans Quarantine

January 1, 2006

U.S. Says It's Making Progress on Bird Flu By HOPE YEN, Associated

Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The U.S. is making fast progress in preparations for a

bird flu pandemic, including measures to close down schools and

quarantine the sick, but vaccine supplies remain inadequate, health

officials said Sunday.

" We've got a lot of work to do, " said Gerberding, director of

the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

citing " bottlenecks " in vaccine production and the delivery of health

care if there's an outbreak.

" We've got to get more and better anti-viral drugs. And we've got to

have every single link in our public health system as strong as it

can be so it can detect this problem, " she said on CBS' " Face the

Nation. "

A strain of a bird flu that has killed more than 70 people in Asia

since it first appeared two years ago has sparked concerns of a super-

flu that could kill millions worldwide. Almost all the victims were

in close contact with poultry.

While stressing that chances remain slight, health experts have said

it could lead to a global pandemic if the bird flu mutates to start

spreading easily among people. The U.S., which has not seen any signs

of the strain in birds or people, has only enough doses now for 4.3

million people.

Gerberding said some immediate measures to combat the flu in the U.S.

and worldwide would include isolating the sick and their immediate

contacts. That might entail closing schools, large meetings or

otherwise separating the afflicted from the rest of the community.

But she added: " I don't think any of us are thinking about those

kinds of Draconian measures to really completely quarantine a

community or even quarantine a country. " ...

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