Editorial: No master plan for bird flu

Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006 | 7:15 a.m.

A new report shows that states' plans for an influenza pandemic aren't consistent or specific, largely because of a lack of information and direction from federal health officials.

The Research Triangle Institute International, a nonprofit group based in North Carolina, studied the pandemic plans posted on the Web sites of 49 state health departments (Louisiana's wasn't posted) and found inconsistencies in identifying and containing outbreaks.

Part of the problem is that the states' plans have different formats - something one Nevada health official said federal officials anticipated when they required states to assemble protocols for addressing pandemics such as the avian, or bird, flu. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promised to devise a master template for use by all states but has yet to deliver.

The institute's report also shows that federal officials have been slow to produce or locate research on important issues, such as how early detection affects spread of the flu or whether face masks work to prevent its spread.

Nevada and Clark County health officials said that pandemic response plans are based on long-used means of controlling the spread of influenza but also change as avian flu evolves. It is, after all, a disease about which health officials are still learning and one for which there still is no vaccine.

What health officials do know, however, is that a global pandemic will be mainly battled on local levels. And that will mean different protocols for different communities. Las Vegas, for example, sees far more international travelers than other cities. Officials need clear strategies for screening them.

Yet local and state health officials nationwide are planning for a pandemic without clear direction and coordination from the federal level. The CDC needs to make good on its promise to provide a planning template and also to provide some kind of centralized coordination. Patchwork planning is no way to fight a pandemic.