How the bird flu experts prepare

Are Minnesota’s pandemic experts walking the talk? Some are –and some aren’t

 

By Josephone Marcotty

Star Tribune

 

Birds are migrating. And the warnings are getting louder.

Bird flu, or the H5N1 virus, has so far infected about 190 people worldwide and more than 100 have died. While it's still a serious risk only to birds, experts fear that it could mutate into a bug that could jump from human to human.

Disaster websites are recommending storing water, food, portable heaters, plastic sheeting, duct tape and hand-crank radios. So we conducted an exercise that's a lot like asking fire chiefs about the batteries in their home smoke detectors. We asked the state's top pandemic experts about their home stockpiles.

Dr. Harry Hull, state epidemiologist

Stockpiling? Yes.

Favorite item: Canned chili.

Advice: Don't forget pet food.

The point of stockpiling, Hull said, is not to stay isolated until it's safe to come out. That's just not realistic. Historically, flu epidemics come in waves of six to eight weeks over the course of 12 to 18 months. No one can stay locked up that long, although the best way to reduce your risk of infection is reducing your exposure to other people, Hull said.

"The most sensible thing you can do to protect yourself is to stay home as long as you can," he said. And don't think that you can stay in isolation until a vaccine comes along. It's unlikely that there will be enough vaccine or that it will get to you fast enough.

"I don't know what's coming, but I feel more secure because I've got food down there" in the basement, he said. He's building a two- to four-week supply of food and water. He also has a radio, flashlights, a supply of batteries and extra fuel for a camp stove.

But he made the mistake of buying a case of pop on sale. His daughter and her friends drank it. The same thing happened with the tuna. Now he buys canned chili "because it's the kind of thing you eat only if you have to," he said.

Dianne Mandernach, state commissioner of health

Stockpiling? Yes.

Favorite item: Canned tuna.

Advice: Don't forget cards and board games.

Two weeks ago she asked the Legislature for $10.5 million to spend on statewide pandemic preparedness. Last Christmas she asked her husband to get her a battery-operated radio. She's not sure if the Legislature will come through, but her husband did.

"It's important that I walk my talk," she said. Each week she adds a few items to her emergency stockpile -- powdered milk, dried pasta and tuna are on the list. You don't have to buy emergency supplies all at once, she said.

"If the worst-case scenario happens, the projections are that 30 percent of the population will be sick," she said. "We will be asking people to do self-quarantine."

Bottled water and portable heaters will be needed only if there aren't enough people going to work to keep the utility systems going, she said. But imagine being stuck in the house for weeks with the kids -- and no TV or computer.

"Families should talk about that," she said. "How are they going to be entertained?"

Dr. Greg Poland, vaccine

researcher, Mayo Clinic

Stockpiling? No.

When will he? At the first hint of human-to-human transmission.

Advice: Handle wild birds with gloves. Hunters, that means you.

Poland is an expert on flu bugs. He doesn't know whether the H5N1 virus will launch the next pandemic, but it has the greatest potential of any bug he's ever seen. "Everything we have seen in its evolution and mutation since 1997 is moving in the worst direction possible," he said.

The best preparation is education, he said. For example, it's important to know how flu spreads. The most common route is via doorknobs, counters or handrails that an infected person has touched. The second is large droplets floating briefly in the air from sneezing or coughing. There are hints that this virus can also spread in a form that could linger for hours in the air, he said. One sick person coughing in a lecture hall could infect dozens.

"I would not send my kids to school or to the mall," he said.

As for his own emergency stockpile, he'll get serious about that if the virus mutates and people start infecting each other, he said.

But when he goes goose hunting this fall he'll wear gloves. Even in its current form the virus can infect humans who pick it up from wild birds and their droppings.

Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota

Stockpiling? Yes.

Favorite item: His backyard well.

Advice: Stockpile prescription drugs.

Osterholm, an infectious- disease specialist and a guru on disaster planning, takes all this advice with several large grains of salt.

"It's a lot about reassurance," he said. Health officials are trying to "scare people into their wits, not out of them," he said. But at the same time, governments don't want people to lose hope and do nothing. There are no easy answers, he said. For example, there is no point in stockpiling unless you plan to stay in your house.

"And we have no idea for how long," he said. If you think you will self-quarantine, then the whole family has to do it. If even one person goes to work they'll likely bring home an infection, he said.

On the other hand, if you are convinced that the food and water supply systems will be disrupted, then by all means stockpile, he said. He and his wife have compiled a food supply, but they don't need water because they have a backyard well. And he has a few highly specialized face masks in the house that can stop the tiniest infectious agents.

"I worry most about prescription drugs," he said. "We have no way for people to stockpile drugs for more than 30 days. What are people on Medicare going to do?"