Planning for next flu pandemic still a tough sell

Readiness for a large-scale influenza outbreak, considered the No. 1 threat to public health, is attracting more attention with the increased emphasis on bioterrorism preparedness.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. July 1, 2002.

When Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced the release of bioterrorism planning money to Illinois last month, he mentioned anthrax but spent more time talking about how the funding could prepare the public health infrastructure for a flu pandemic.

"This money is to build a local state public health system that is second to none," said Thompson, speaking at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. "One that will not only meet the needs of bioterrorism ... but also infectious diseases such as a pandemic flu."

This is just one example of something that many public health officials say is a silver lining to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the anthrax attack that followed. The emphasis on developing a response to bioterrorism has meant more money to enable the public health infrastructure to address both human-created and natural disasters.

"Preparing for pandemic flu and bioterrorism relate so closely in terms of figuring out how to expand the number of hospital beds, how emergency rooms can function, how to detect the agent and how to do syndromic surveillance to detect unusual increases," said Arnold S. Monto, MD, director of the Michigan Bioterrorism and Health Preparedness Research and Training Center, who has long been involved in the state's flu planning.

But public health officials have long struggled to sell to likely responders the need to prepare for a large flu outbreak, much like the ones that swept the country in 1968, 1957 and 1918. A national plan has been bogged down in politics since the early 1990s, although a draft is now awaiting approval at the Dept. of Health and Human Services. [...]