Pandemic Influenza

PANDEMIC INFLUENZA

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I preface my remarks by saying that the first person who brought the avian flu epidemic to my attention was my colleague Senator Obama, who identified this issue before most other Senators. I commend the Senator for his leadership on this issue. I am glad he is here this evening to speak to it.

I have had two public health briefings in my time as a Congressman and Senator which stopped me cold. The first one was about 20 years ago. It was on the global AIDS epidemic. I knew it was a problem, but I didn't know what kind of a problem. I left that briefing in the House Committee on the Budget and went home to speak in very sincere terms to my family about what I considered to be a real threat to all of us. It was in the earliest stages.

Today, I had the second public health briefing which stopped me cold again. We were briefed by Secretary Leavitt from the Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Gerberding from the Centers for Disease Control, and Dr. Fauci, well-known doctor at the National Institutes Of Health. They talked about the possibility of this avian flu epidemic. Senator Reid has gone into detail.

Mr. President, the images from Katrina are still with us--children, senior citizens, people with disabilities and chronic medical problems, waiting for days for care and medicine. These are not images we hope to see again anytime soon, and yet, we are told that these scenes will be repeated, in larger numbers, in more cities, and for far longer when the avian flu breaks out in this country.

Scientists and government officials alike, worldwide, agree that the outbreak of avian flu is virtually inevitable and that, like we were for Katrina, this country is woefully underprepared.

A few weeks ago at the U.N., the World Health Organization warned the Assembly of a pending global pandemic. President Bush acknowledged, ``If left unchallenged, this virus could become the first pandemic of the 21st century.'' Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Leavitt and Senator FRIST are as worried as I am. There is a general sense that we are not prepared.

The only antiviral drug that appears to be effective in minimizing the flu's effect is in short supply. The U.S. has enough doses in its stockpile to treat just 2.3 million people. The only vaccine we have in the pipeline is experimental. It may or may not be effective against the mutation that breaks out in humans in this country. And supplies of that vaccine are limited.

Right now, the avian flu primarily infects birds, but we are aware of 115 cases in which people have been infected by the flu. Fifty-nine of them have died. If that pattern were to hold, 55 percent of the people infected with this flu could die.

In many ways, we are better off than we were in 1918 when a flu pandemic struck this country and took 675,000 lives. We know how germs are spread and how to minimize that spread. In other ways we are far more susceptible to this threat. The Wilderness Society believes the avian flu could spread from China to Japan to New York to San Francisco within the first week.

The Council on Foreign Relations dedicated its last volume of Foreign Affairs to the impact of a global pandemic--the prospect of battling an epidemic of flu in several countries at the same time. ABC News reports that officials in London are quietly looking for additional morgue space.

The Bush administration is preparing a plan for responding to an outbreak of avian flu. I think there is more that we can do and that we must do--now. If you listen to the leaders in infectious disease and public health around the world, we may not have the luxury of time on this one.

We need to step up surveillance of infectious disease here in the U.S. and internationally, so that we can track this thing and begin to contain it immediately. We need to invest in research and development to pursue all possibilities for effective vaccines and antiviral drugs. If the avian flu hits with a 55 percent mortality rate within days of infection, as it appears to be doing, we could lose hundreds of thousands of Americans in the first few months. We need to aggressively pursue vaccines now--not after the outbreak has begun.

We need to help states develop their own preparedness plans so that our response is coordinated and organized and will save lives. Where is the medicine stored? How do we make decisions about who gets treatment when there is too little to go around? How will the distribution systems work? This is work we must help states and localities complete now--not during a time of crisis.

Last flu season, we lost about half of our expected supply of flu vaccine at the same time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began encouraging everyone to go and get one. It was a mess. We had senior citizens waiting for hours for a vaccine, often to learn that they were too late. We saw people waiting for a flu vaccine standing in lines that snaked through K-Mart parking lots.

I hope we don't have to learn these lessons again the hard way. It is our responsibility to ensure that states and localities are prepared. We need to aggressively pursue effective treatments now--not when flu victims are overwhelming our hospitals before our eyes. And we have to invest now--not later--in the capability to track this flu so we can stop its spread as quickly and effectively as possible.

If we don't--if we simply wring our hands and hope for the best--when the avian flu hits this country, it will make the scenes of Katrina pale in comparison.

Before I turn it over to my colleague, I will not repeat the remarks of Senator Reid, but I will say if you believe you can survive this flu epidemic because you are not an infant or sickly or elderly, that is not the situation. It turns out we have no resistance to this flu strain, and as a consequence we are all in the same situation in terms of vulnerability. That is why this is so serious.

We had a briefing today, and I am sure Senator Obama will go into detail on it, but it raises questions as Senator Reid raised.

I will yield the rest of my time to my colleague and thank him for his leadership.

I close by saying, we left the Defense appropriations bill, brought it out of committee today. It contains $50 billion for our continuing efforts in Iraq. I will provide and vote for every penny our service men and women need, but I also believe we have an obligation to Americans here. A stronger America starts at home. That means being prepared for the next challenge we face, and this avian flu pandemic could easily be that challenge.

http://thomas.loc.gov/