Recordpub.com - Question is when virus will hit U.S.

By Matt Fredmonsky

Record-Courier staff writer

ROOTSTOWN -- It"s not a question of if avian influenza, or the virus labeled H5N1 by the U.S. government, will hit American shores.

It"s a question of when.

Rajeev Venkayya, the special assistant to President Bush for biodefense and a member of the White House Homeland Security Council, spoke to a small audience of about 150 people at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Friday.

"Most of us think this is inevitable," Venkayya said. "We will see H5N1 in our bird population." He said many health experts anticipated its arrival this past spring.

Venkayya, a 1992 graduate of NEOUCOM, worked to help draft the federal report titled "The National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza" as a personal appointment of the president. He worked with members of the Center for Disease Control in his capacity as a medical professional to draft the document. As special assistant to the president he directs policies to prevent, protect and respond to bio-terrorism and naturally occurring pandemics.

"The best thing you can do is have a close, well-matched vaccine," Venkayya told those who attended. "It"s the closest thing to a silver bullet."

According to the CDC, as of Thursday 258 human cases of bird flu have been reported world-wide. A total 154 people have died in 10 countries, and 55 countries in all have reported cases of avian flu in their bird populations.

In his speech, Venkayya discussed governmental procedures designed to watch for the arrival of a pandemic, how to treat and contain a viral outbreak. In a few weeks, the CDC will release guidelines for local, state and federal departments to follow in the event of an outbreak of virus like the avian flu. Those guidelines will deal with safeguarding national borders, community care standards and health protection, Venkayya said.

He said there is no evidence of a sustained, efficient human to human spread of the virus.

"It is a bird problem," Venkayya said.

The primary outbreaks are centered in Asia, where the virus first appeared, but bird flu has spread to Europe and Africa. The U.S. government is wasting no time in planning for possible human cases of the virus.

Venkayya and other federal health experts spent last summer addressing the country"s approach to a pandemic. The group released the influenza strategy in November 2005, and six months later also released an implementation plan for government agencies. The plan includes more than 300 actions to be carried out by local, state and federal departments.

The documents, and other information regarding the avian flu and bio-terrorist pandemics, can be found on the Internet at www.pandemicflu.gov.

Venkayya called the Web site a one-stop shop for all information about possible pandemics within the United States.

The government does have a stockpile of vaccines to prepare for the earliest known strand of avian flu, but he said it can take up to four months to create a vaccine to counter a flu epidemic, manufacture it and make it readily available.

"Preparedness has to cut across all communities," he said. "Vaccines will not be available during the first wave."