More money for antiviral medication to combat a possible future flu pandemic has stalled in the Utah Legislature this week, where a request for $1 million for the drugs was relegated to No. 10 on a subcommittee's list of budget favorites. But Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert promised a pandemic flu task force Thursday that he would try to make the funding "a priority."

The antivirals are just one of 20 urgent and semi-urgent recommendations presented at the sixth and final meeting of the Governor's Task Force for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness. One of those recommendations is that the governor appoint a permanent advisory committee to take up where the task force left off.

Much of Thursday's meeting was spent going over a set of eight position papers containing recommendations and fine-tuning the language. Patti Pavey, pandemic influenza task force coordinator, and state epidemiologist Dr. Robert Rolfs will boil the issues down into a final report that committee members can study. After their input, a final task force report will be sent to the governor, who will decide what to do with it.

Task force members urged that an executive summary sent to the governor be short and to the point. Although a future flu could potentially wreak havoc, task force members worried that detailed recommendations might not grab the governor's and legislators' attention.

"If you can't get it down to half a page, you might as well not bother at all," advised member Clark Larsen.

Among the issues a longer final report will address are communication, making sure the state has enough capacity in the health care system to deal with a pandemic, and how to make sure that vulnerable populations have enough support during such an event. They also discussed what would be needed to maintain "essential business and community services" during a pandemic.

Other recommendations center on a chain of command and collaborations, and liability issues for those who are assisting others in a pandemic.

One of the challenges during a massive flu outbreak would be managing and distributing vaccine most effectively, the panel agreed. Their plans include establishing priorities for who would receive it and in what order and how the word would get out to the public, especially during failure of normal communication channels, which is a possibility if thousands are sick. The state's plans, they agreed, will have to match up to federal guidelines, as well.

Herbert, who addressed the task force at the close of its five months of work, noted that whether Utah is faced with an earthquake, a flood or a pandemic, "if we're not prepared, history will not treat us kindly."

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Contributing: Lois M. Collins

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com