Bird flu may be in U.S. as early as summer

Tuesday night millions of Americans died from avian flu following an outbreak that spread rapidly around the world. In the ABC television network movie, "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America," a strain of the H5N1 avian flu virus originates in a Hong Kong market and mutates into a human virus that rapidly spreads across the world.

Charlotte Craig, director of the Cape Girardeau County Health Center, said the movie's scenario was "not realistic."

However, the emerging infections coordinator at the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services said avian flu will be in the United States by this summer or next.

"It will be the disease in the birds, not humans," Eddie Hedrick said.

Strains of the avian flu have been reported mainly in Asia, but infected birds have been found in Great Britain, France and North Africa. Wild birds are migrating north for the summer, meaning the disease could be carried greater distances.

The odds of humans becoming infected in the United States are small, Hedrick said. But federal, state and local officials are planning for the worst-case scenario, following a pandemic response plan handed down by the federal government.

Locally, Cape Girardeau County health and public officials formed an infectious disease task force to prepare for any emerging public health threat, including avian flu.

"It might not happen with avian flu. It may be a pandemic that transfers like the regular flu. No one can really predict what's going to happen," Craig said.

That's why the task force will ask Cape Girardeau County commissioners to adopt a countywide quarantine ordinance May 22. The proposed ordinance would give health officials the power to quarantine infected patients or areas at the first sign of an outbreak.

Cape Girardeau County would be the fourth county in Missouri to adopt a local ordinance.

Hedrick said local communities are key factors of a pandemic flu plan. "If these things break out at 5,000 places at once, it's important that local officials can handle it," he said.

Local and state agricultural response plans for an outbreak of the avian flu in poultry is patterned from the National Influenza Response Plan from the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

For at least 72 hours after detection, a statewide quarantine would be imposed, stopping the movement of chickens, turkeys, game birds and domestic waterfowl and their products into and within the state to give health officials a chance to establish the extent of the infection. All birds on infected farms and any nearby flocks that could have come into contact with them would be killed, and a quarantine zone extending 12.4 miles around the infected farm would also be established.

Missouri, which is the fifth-largest turkey-producing state, has substantial poultry flocks at risk for avian flu.

Since 2004, the World Health Organization reports 205 confirmed cases of H5N1 avian flu infection and 113 human deaths.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

jfreeze@semissourian.com

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