**AVIAN FLU Headlines (April 18, 2006 -- May 2, 2006)\
*Rep. Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (TX-26)***

This past week, the Senate has been considering HR 4939 - the Emergency
Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror,
and Hurricane Recovery, 2006. \$2.3 billion dollars for pandemic flu was
included in the Senate Report titled 109-230.

If the Senate passes this bill including this avian flu measure and the
House approves it as well, this funding would become the second
installment for avian flu preparedness. A first pandemic flu installment
of \$3.8 billion dollars was allocated when HR 2863 was passed and
enacted into law in 2005. Additional debate on HR 4939 will continue
next week in the Senate.

Please feel free to forward this email to interested parties or have
them reply to this sender to be added to the distribution list. Should
you have questions concerning avian flu, please do not hesitate to
contact my office at (202) 225-7772.

Sincerely,\
![](media/image1.png){width="1.8090277777777777in"
height="0.7173611111111111in"}\
Michael C. Burgess, M.D.\
Member of Congress

[Business Plan for a
Pandemic?](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050101608.html)
, Washington Post*\
More than half of U.S. companies think there will be a global flu
epidemic in the next two years. Two-thirds think it will seriously
disrupt their operations as well as foment social unrest. But two-thirds
also say they aren\'t prepared. One-third of executives surveyed say
nobody in their organization has been appointed to plan for a pandemic;
another one-quarter couldn\'t or wouldn\'t answer the question.
\"Corporations are looking at this like deer at headlights,\" said Tommy
G. Thompson, who spent much of his last two years as secretary of health
and human services sounding the pandemic alarm and is now doing the same
as a private consultant. \"They are very skittish. They don\'t know
which way to go. They are hoping the car is not going to hit them.\"*

[Mild form of avian flu found in New
Jersey](http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-05-01T150929Z_01_SIB154527_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-NEWJERSEY.xml),
Reuters*\
Authorities have discovered a mild form of avian influenza at a live
bird market in New Jersey, but it is not the deadly H5N1 strain
governments around the world are trying to contain, the state\'s
agriculture department said. \"The strain was found in a live bird
market in Camden County. None of the birds in the market died from this
virus, which is an indicator that the virus was low pathogenic and not
harmful to humans,\" said a statement by New Jersey\'s Agriculture
Secretary Charles Kuperus which was posted on Friday. Details were not
immediately available on precisely when the avian flu in Camden County
was discovered.*

[Airlines: Bird Flu Passenger Database Too
Costly](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193273,00.html), Fox News*\
Concerned about bird flu, federal health officials want airlines to
collect personal information about domestic and international passengers
to help track a potential epidemic. Financially strapped airlines say
creating such a database would impose staggering new costs. \"What
we\'re asking for is the authority to collect the information in the
context of modern travel on airlines,\" Dr. Marty Cetron, the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention\'s director of global migration and
quarantine, said Tuesday in a telephone interview with The Associated
Press. \"There\'s just a number of conditions where acting quickly with
electronic access to passenger information is going to make a lot of
difference,\" Cetron said.*

[China Stresses It Isn\'t Hiding Bird-Flu
Cases](http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB114643844301240023.html),
Wall Street Journal\
*A senior Chinese health official reiterated on Friday that there have
been delays in the country\'s internal reporting of possible human cases
of bird flu, but he emphasized that China hasn\'t been hiding any
instances of the disease. The comments from Mao Qunan, spokesman for
China\'s Ministry of Health, came after an article in The Wall Street
Journal on Thursday cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter as
saying that local officials had failed in some instances to report
possible cases of the disease to the central government. \"Most local
medical institutes where humans with bird flu are first treated were
slow in reporting to health authorities, therefore we must first raise
their awareness. That is a priority,\" Mr. Mao told the Xinhua News
Agency, in an article published Friday.*

[The landscape of a
pandemic](http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3823093.html),
Houston Chronicle**\
***The Los Alamos model showed how a particularly infectious pandemic
strain might sicken 151 million Americans, or about half the population,
if unimpeded by antivirals or vaccinations. A mortality rate similar to
that of the 1918 flu --- estimated at about 2.5 percent --- would kill
nearly 4 million in the U.S. The H5N1 strain circulating in birds and
occasionally infecting people has a mortality rate of 50 percent, though
most scientists believe the virus would be less virulent if it mutated
into a human-to-human form. For now, the U.S. stockpile of antiviral
drugs is too small to mount a successful defense, according to the
model, Neil Ferguson, who teaches in the department of infectious
disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, said. Halting the
spread of the epidemic would require treatment for 150 million people.
Even treatment for 75 million people could significantly reduce the
impact. But the U.S. government is planning to stockpile treatment for
only 51 million people by late 2008.*

[As fears grow, scientists race to battle bird
flu](http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12373377/), MSNBC*\
But even with the possibility of a sudden pandemic, key scientists say
the flurry of current research --- even though products could be years
away --- is absolutely worthwhile. Why? Because we should have been
doing it all along. Most avian flu conferences, and there are some held
each week, start with admonishment for global health officials and
private industry for not ensuring greater vaccine manufacturing capacity
around the world and for not beginning drug and vaccine research, and
stockpiling, years or even decades sooner. Whether a pandemic hits in
the next year or two, another one is likely to be along sometime in the
future, and researchers say the current effort can only improve the sad
state of scientific preparedness we're in now.*

[Poultry Industry Criticizes Federal Avian Flu
Planning](http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2006/04/21/67444.htm),
Associated Press*\
Delaware agriculture secretary Michael Scuse complained that the USDA
has received little input from Delaware and other states that have dealt
with recent avian flu outbreaks. "This doesn\'t mean anything to us,"
Scuse said, holding up a copy of the USDA plan. "We\'re years ahead of
this." At the same time, industry officials said the federal government
could do a better job of providing states with the resources needed for
surveillance and containment in the event of an outbreak of the dreaded
H5N1 virus.\
*

[Avian flu insurance
planned](http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1145483415441&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851),
Toronto Star*\
A specialty insurance firm is set to launch a novel policy designed to
pay up to \$1.5 million to small business owners ordered to shut down
because of the avian flu or another contagious outbreak. Mint Canadian
Specialty Underwriters will offer its Outbreak Contingency Cover to
small to medium-sized businesses in the food service and medical
industry.* *Payouts on the policy will range from \$5,000 to \$50,000
per day up to a maximum of 30 days, for a maximum total payout of \$1.5
million. The cost of the premiums is being finalized, Barrett Hubbard,
managing director of the firm said. \"What we\'ve tried to do is develop
a product that we think is affordable for the small to mid-sized
business.\"*

[Flock-Killing Planned if Bird Flu
Found](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/19/AR2006041901103.html),
Associated Press**\
***The U.S. has a poultry industry worth more than \$29 billion that
produces more than 9 billion chickens and 250 million turkeys a year,
more than any other country .Owners will want to report sick birds
because they will be paid fair market value for destroyed flocks,
DeHaven said. Stopping the spread of bird flu has been more difficult in
countries that can\'t afford to compensate farmers, he added. To target
owners of small flocks, the Agriculture Department has an outreach
campaign that uses Spanish and Vietnamese as well as English in
materials and ads.*

[Fighting Bird Flu at Home: How to Prepare for the Possible
Pandemic](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192342,00.html), FOX
News**\
***The irony may be that for all of this planning, taking care of cases
will probably fall to individuals and take place in the home. This is
the view of Gratton Woodson, MD, a primary care doctor at the Druid Oaks
Health Center in Decatur, Ga., who has made a years-long study of bird
flu on behalf of his patients and has published a bird flu preparedness
manual to help them cope.* *Hospitals may cease to be a refuge.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Gratton
Woodson, MD says, there are 1 million hospital beds in this country, and
10,000 ventilators. Almost three-quarters of the beds are already full
at any one time. "There is no possible way the hospital system could
cope," he says*

[Cumulative Number of Confirmed Human Cases of Avian Influenza A/(H5N1)
Reported to
WHO](http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/cases_table_2006_04_27/en/index.html)

**27 April 2006**

<table>
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 20%" />
<col style="width: 8%" />
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 8%" />
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 8%" />
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 7%" />
<col style="width: 6%" />
<col style="width: 8%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td rowspan="2"><p>Country</p>
<p> </p></td>
<td colspan="2">2003</td>
<td colspan="2">2004</td>
<td colspan="2">2005</td>
<td colspan="2">2006</td>
<td colspan="2">Total</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>cases</td>
<td>deaths</td>
<td>cases</td>
<td>deaths</td>
<td>cases</td>
<td>deaths</td>
<td>cases</td>
<td>deaths</td>
<td>cases</td>
<td>deaths</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Azerbaijan</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>5</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Cambodia</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>6</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>China</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>18</td>
<td>12</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Egypt</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>4</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Indonesia</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>17</td>
<td>11</td>
<td>15</td>
<td>13</td>
<td>32</td>
<td>24</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Iraq</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Thailand</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>17</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>14</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Turkey</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>4</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>Viet Nam</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>29</td>
<td>20</td>
<td>61</td>
<td>19</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>0</td>
<td>93</td>
<td>42</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>Total</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>46</td>
<td>32</td>
<td>95</td>
<td>41</td>
<td>61</td>
<td>37</td>
<td>205</td>
<td>113</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Total number of cases includes number of deaths.\
WHO reports only laboratory-confirmed cases.