Bird Flu Would Ravage U.S., White House Warns

WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday unveiled a foreboding report on the nation's lack of preparedness for a bird flu pandemic, warning that such an outbreak could kill as many as 2 million people and deal a war-like blow to the country's economic and social fabric. It urged state and local governments to make their own preparations beyond the federal efforts.

In the government's first detailed look at the potential effects on public health and U.S. society as a whole, the report said a full-blown pandemic could lead to travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines, massive absenteeism, an economic slowdown "and civil disturbances and breakdowns in public order."

It warned that the healthcare system -- including doctors, nurses and suppliers of pharmaceuticals -- was inadequate to meet the country's needs in a flu pandemic. "In the event of multiple simultaneous outbreaks, there may be insufficient medical resources or personnel to augment local capabilities," the report warned.

More broadly, state, local and tribal governments should "anticipate that all sources of external aid may be compromised during a pandemic," it said, meaning that "local communities will have to address the medical and non-medical effects of the pandemic with available resources."

While warning that as a last resort, mandatory travel restrictions may be necessary, such limits alone "are unlikely to reduce the total number of people who become ill or the impact the pandemic will have on any one community."

Some observers welcomed the report's blunt tone.

Michael Osterholm, an expert on disease control who has long warned that the nation is ill-prepared for a bird flu pandemic, praised the 234-page report as "a very important step forward."

"This was a brutally honest but very fair ... assessment of where we're at," Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in a telephone interview. He said he had no role in preparing the report.

The document includes the White House Homeland Security Council's plan to implement a national strategy in the face of a flu pandemic, for which Congress appropriated $3.8 billion in December.

The strategy is built around three elements: preparation, surveillance and detection, and containment. And the report listed more than 300 steps that it said the administration would take, had already begun to take, or would recommend that state and local governments pursue.