Bush wants to throw $7.1 billion at fighting potential flu pandemic

President Bush today announced a vision to invest $7.1 billion in preparing the US against avian flu --- the so-called "bird flu".  I'm all for this since, unlike many bacterial infections, being healthy isn't an effective offense against viruses like influenza.  Once you get "the bug", there's nothing you can do to stop it other than letting it runs its course.  Antibiotics won't help since they only help fight bacterial infections, not viruses.

So far, millions and millions of birds have been proactively-euthanized across 16 countries in Asia and Europe to fight outbreaks there.  While 121 humans have been infected with 62 deaths, all infections have apparently come from bird-to-human contact.  Officials worry that the flu strain will mutate and be able to jump from human-to-human, putting millions of human lives at risk.  Says the CDC,

A flu pandemic is a global outbreak caused when a new form of the influenza A virus emerges that can spread easily between humans, or an older form re-emerges after a long time. The pandemic can cause widespread illness and death because people's immune systems offer little protection against the new virus. The 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic killed more than 500,000 people in the United States and up to 50 million worldwide.

Here are the details of the "Bush Pandemic Plan":

• $251 million to help foreign partners train medical personnel, develop monitoring capabilities to detect outbreaks and draw up preparedness plans.
• $1.2 billion to purchase enough vaccine developed by the National Institutes of Health against current bird flu strain to vaccinate 20 million people.
• $1 billion to stockpile additional antiviral medications to provide enough to treat first responders and other key personnel.
• $2.8 billion for a "crash program" to accelerate cell culture technology, which Bush said would produce enough vaccine for all Americans within six months.
• Relief from the "burden of litigation" for vaccine manufacturers.
• $583 million for pandemic preparedness, including $100 million to help states complete and exercise their pandemic plans.

Source: CNN