Flu outbreak crisis predicted

The warnings continue, and experts urge focus and planning.

By Amy Snow Landa, AMNews correspondent. Aug. 8, 2005.

As if the usual worries of medical practice aren't enough, add the frightening prospect of pandemic influenza that could kill tens of millions of people worldwide within months.

That's the scenario that public health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts say will become reality.

"The United States remains unprepared for pandemic influenza that could kill millions of Americans over a short period of time with little warning," said Andrew T. Pavia, MD, professor and chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center and Primary Children's Hospital.

Dr. Pavia, chair of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's task force on pandemic influenza, warned a House health subcommittee in May such a pandemic "is imminent" and its likely impact "cannot be overemphasized."

Similar strong warnings have been issued by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as by a chorus of scientists and other experts.

"It's going to happen," said Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "It might not be tonight, it might be several years from now. But the bottom line is that every day we wait is going to be one more day of missing preparedness, and we're going to regret that."

The concern now is focused on the avian flu strain H5N1, which is circulating in Asia and has killed tens of millions of chickens and other birds. This strain is also highly lethal to humans. To date, 50% of infected patients have died.