Bird flu puts scare into Americans

ATLANTA — Americans fearful of bird flu are peppering health officials with all sorts of questions: Is it safe to have a bird feeder in my yard? If I see a dead bird, should I report it? Is it still OK to have turkey at Thanksgiving?

The answers are yes, no, and yes.

Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been handling an avalanche of phone calls from the public and the media.

"It's been insane," said Dave Daigle, a spokesman for the CDC, which has been getting an average of 447,000 hits a day on its avian flu information Web page.

That's more than the CDC got from people wanting to know about the flu shot shortage last October or the West Nile virus outbreaks in 2003.

And bird flu isn't even here. It is just now infecting poultry in eastern Europe. So far, it almost never spreads between humans and in two years has infected 117 people, all in Asia. More than 60 have died.

But in the past couple weeks there has been tremendous attention on the virus and U.S. government plans to cope with a possible global outbreak. Health experts believe the bird virus may one day mutate to a form that is not only deadly, but easily spread among people.

The U.S. government has started stockpiling Tamiflu and other medicines that scientists believe might be effective against a pandemic virus. But scientists reported in the journal Nature that virus samples taken from a Vietnamese girl in February were found to be resistant to Tamiflu.

Some people wonder if they should do the same thing. The manufacturer of Tamiflu, which was created to treat ordinary human flu, advises the drug be taken within 48 hours after flu symptoms begin. So some health officials agree it might be wise to have a supply at the ready, especially if a shortage develops.

But people should suppress the urge to pester their doctors for Tamiflu prescriptions, said Dr. Charles Woernle of the Alabama Department of Public Health.

Those who hoard Tamiflu will reduce supplies for the elderly and others at risk of serious illness and death from conventional flu, he said.

"You'd be denying some folks who have definite, immediate needs," said Woernle, Alabama's assistant state health officer for disease control and prevention.

Debbie Crane, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, said if people really want to take precautions, they should eat right, wash their hands and take commonsense steps to bolster their health and immune systems.