U.S. not ready for bird flu, Leavitt says

WASHINGTON — The United States is not adequately prepared to deal with a feared pandemic of avian influenza, the nation's top health official said Thursday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt also said President Bush will soon ask Congress for additional money to implement a national pandemic strategy.

He did not say how much, but the Senate voted Wednesday to spend nearly $8 billion to stockpile vaccines and drugs, just one part of the national strategy whose release is expected soon.

"I should make clear that if a pandemic were to happen tomorrow, we are inadequately prepared," Leavitt said. "That's also true of every nation on the planet."

"We are better prepared today than we were yesterday, and we'll be better prepared tomorrow than we are today," he added.

Despite scores of human infections by a strain of influenza that typically circulates among birds, A/H5N1, there has been no evidence that the virus has gained the ability to spread from human to human, a necessary condition to cause a pandemic.

In his speech to the National Press Club, Leavitt said government scientists have told him there is no way to know when — or even if — a human disease will emerge.

"The probability is not zero, and that leaves us with only one option: to prepare," Leavitt said.

The HHS secretary said Bush would "very shortly" lay out a national strategy for managing an influenza pandemic. Asked whether the administration would ask Congress for additional funds, he replied, "It will require resources."

HHS has been working on the national influenza response strategy since the Clinton administration. It released a draft plan in 2004 and delivered a "final draft" to Leavitt Sept. 1, but that draft has not been made public.

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