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Health Secretary with Bird Flu Warning

The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt, said last week that the lethal avian flu spreading rapidly around the world could soon infect wild birds and domesticated flocks in the United States. Said Leavitt in his testimony to a congressional panel on his HHS`s budget for combating a possible avian flu outbreak among humans, "it`s just a matter of time, and it may be very soon" when wild as well as poultry flocks in the U.S. contract the disease.

Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee criticized the Bush administration`s preparedness, saying not enough funds were being allocated for vaccine production, stockpiling other medical supplies, disease detection and community readiness. The embarrassingly poor performance of the federal government in response to Hurricane Katrina`s devastation only fuels skepticism when it comes to disaster planning. Secretary Leavitt noted that infection of birds alone in the United States with the H5N1 virus would not create a public health emergency unless the disease mutated so that it became easily transferred from human to human.

For the moment, Leavitt puts the responsibility of local preparedness mostly with local officials. According to his report and testimony, while U.S. poultry flocks have suffered from isolated cases of highly contagious avian flu, they have not yet been hit by the virulent H5N1 strain that has killed or led to the culling of about 200 million birds, mostly in Asia, since late 2003. Leavitt is skeptical that the federal government could provide all localities with the full arsenal of basic medical equipment, such as ventilators, masks, gauze and gloves, needed during a pandemic.