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Leavitt Says Bird Flu Work Aids Terrorism Readiness By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — The scramble to ready the United States for the possibility of a deadly influenza pandemic will yield long-term gains for bioterrorism preparedness, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 26). Increased outbreak monitoring abroad and improved response and vaccine capacity within the United States will prove to have been crucial gains even if the avian influenza virus never mutates into a form that can be passed from human to human, Leavitt said in a lunch speech at the National Press Club here. “If a pandemic were to happen tomorrow, we are inadequately prepared,” said the health secretary, whose tenure in the post is approaching the one-year mark. “That’s true of every nation on the planet.” The current “bird flu” outbreak emerged in poultry in Southeast Asia, sickening more than 100 people who contracted it from birds, and has spread as far as Europe. Experts predict the spread will continue but say the gravest danger lies in the possibility that the virus could mutate into a form capable of human-to-human transmission, a development that could lead to millions of human deaths. Leavitt said there is no way to predict whether such a mutation will occur but that given the potential consequences, countries must prepare for a human-to-human pandemic as if it were a certainty. The United States is seeking to boost vaccine-production capacity, improve local distribution of federal drug stockpiles in a crisis and increase international surveillance of disease outbreaks — efforts that will give the country a better chance at containing a bioterrorist attack, Leavitt said. “Virtually everything we do will benefit us in the long term, and not just with viruses, but with bioterrorism and other pandemics,” said the secretary. Leavitt said that although Washington monitors outbreaks extensively in regions such as Southeast Asia, governments cannot possibly track and contain every suspicious illness. As a result, he said, domestic preparedness is Washington’s highest priority. “There is no way that a central government in any nation on the Earth is going to be able to monitor and manage every one of those situations,” he said. “Our primary effort needs to be preparing to fight it here at home.” Leavitt said President George W. Bush would soon release a national strategy on pandemics and that the Health and Human Services Department would issue a related national pandemic and public health response plan. He indicated that drug distribution and vaccine capacity would be chief concerns. “The capacity doesn’t exist within the United States to produce vaccines at sufficient speed and sufficient quantity to reach every American,” Leavitt said. The secretary called for wider use of cell-based, rather than egg-based, culturing of pathogens for vaccine production. Most vaccines are now based on cultures grown in chicken eggs, but using human or animal cells for culturing could mean large gains in speed and capacity. Cell-based production “will change the world of vaccines forever,” Leavitt said.
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