2 US Cabinet members to speak Monday re avian flu

Can somone post it? My equipment is bad, no volume. My son tried to no avail to fix it!

Thanks

Avian Influenza Preparations Teleconference     6/05        Part 2

(Secretary Leavitt) So the point is these things happen and they have a profound impact on the world when they do.

In 1968 and 1957 we had pandemics that were relatively minor by pandemic terms. Lots of people got sick but not very many people died

But in 1918 we had a pandemic that was both efficient and virulent. That is to say it was spread fast and it also made people very sick - to the point of dying. In fact about 40 million people across the planet died.

It’s that kind of a pandemic that we need to be prepared for.

We have no reason to know or to believe that that kind of pandemic will occur but we know it’s possible.

People are concerned today in the scientific community for very good reason.

The virus that we are currently watching - the H5N1 virus often referred to as the avian flu - is spreading across the world on the backs of wild birds. It’s in more than 50 countries now and new countries are added constantly.

We are also seeing the virus spread between birds & people and in very limited situations on a non-efficient basis there is the potential that we are seeing it from person to person.

We have not see sustained person to person or efficient person to person which would be the making of a pandemic, but this virus clearly shows the warning signs that require our attention

We are also concerned because this particular virus has the genetic and clinical manifestations that the 1981 virus had.

I just wanted to say "aurora, you are truly awesome for going though the trouble of typing that all out!" -Thanks on behalf of the board.

Avian Influenza Preparations Teleconference     6/05         Part 4

(Secretary Johanns)  It’s the high path avian influenza that we worry about.

That brings me to my second point, which is that we have dealt with high path avian influenza before in the United States. That is not commonly known, but in 2004 we had a case of high path avian influenza in Texas. Before that in the 1980’s we had high path avian influenza in Virginia, and I believe in PA some years before that we had high path avian influenza.

So we at the USDA have dealt with it - we have a plan in place.

That brings me to my third point.  What is that plan?

If it is a domestic flock, we deal with high path avian influenza very, very aggressively.  We would quarantine the flock We would test in about a six mile radius around that flock to see if the high path avian influenza had spread. 

We would destroy that flock - we would humanely destroy the birds.

We would compensate the owner for that, but we would destroy those birds.

We would then disinfect the area where the birds were, and we would retest to make sure that we have eradicated the high path avian influenza virus.

The next point that I wanted to make is that in the event you were to see that we were dealing with high path avian influenza it does not, does not, does NOT, signal the start of a human pandemic.

In our country we have very integrated poultry industry, and as I said before we would deal with this very, very aggressively.

Currently this virus is not spreading efficiently either from bird to human or human to human so the identification of high path in this country - which has occurred in three other occasions - does not indicate a pandemic has started

There is a final point I want to make, and then I will turn the call over to Dr. Venkayya.

My final point is that poultry is safe to eat. Cooking poultry kills viruses, and we have always put out information on how to properly prepare and how to properly cook poultry. When people cook the poultry, they are not going to get sick. It kills the virus whether it is high path or low path avian influenza.

SEC. LEAVITT: Thank you. I believe we should now go to questions. So Trey, do you want to organize that?

MR. BOHN: Yes, please. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Let's just begin our question and answer session now. If you'd like to ask a question, please press *1 on your touchtone phone and give the operator your name and your outlet. And we'll begin that way. Operator, first question, please.

OPERATOR: Thank you. One moment please for our first question. As a reminder, to ask a question please press *1 on your phone at this time. (pause) Thank you. Our first question comes from Scott Hennon. And please state your station.

REPORTER: With WDAY. I guess either secretary can take this question. I'm just going to relay, if you don't mind, two common questions that we get on the avian flu discussions from listeners. And one has to do with our vaccination supply -- you know, the amount of supply available should it rise to the pandemic level.

And the other has to do with the cost in preparing for it.

The congressman from Minnesota, represents the Seventh District, Congressman Peterson, who's riled folks up in the heartland here about the fact that we're spending, in his view, too much money on preparing for something that's not even a threat yet, that being the bird flu. And so I get asked the question a lot whether or not the monies being spent, if H5N1 doesn't rise to the level of pandemic flu, is in fact an investment worthy of fighting a future pandemic.

So those two questions, if you don't mind.

SEC. LEAVITT: Thank you. First let me indicate that we have every optimism that a vaccine can be developed for an H5N1 virus. However, the vaccine would need to be developed for the specific virus that ultimately triggered the pandemic. Consequently, the development and manufacturing of the vaccine could not begin until that had been identified. It would likely be six months from the time we identify the virus until we could have produced vaccine for distribution.

The bad news on the vaccine front is that we do not have sufficient capacity domestically to manufacture a course of vaccine sufficient to provide that immune protection for every man, woman, and child in the United States. The president has ordered that we move aggressively to create that capacity, and we are now in the process of making substantial investments as a major part of the $7.1 billion supplemental appropriation that he requested from the Congress.

The need for a vaccine would be present in any pandemic circumstance, so we do not create just the capacity to develop a vaccine for the H5N1 virus, but for any pandemic virus that could come along. We need that capacity. We also need the capacity for the annual flu, which we know happens every year. One of the good pieces of news from this, if there is such a silver lining, is that we can take the annual flu vaccine problem off the table. This is money that's well-spent whether or not the H5N1 virus triggers the next pandemic.

As I indicated earlier, there's no reason to believe a pandemic will not occur at some point in the future, and that if it were to occur in the near term our preparations are not what we hope them to be in the future.

OPERATOR: Next question is from RJ McAllister from KWTO Radio.

REPORTER: To anybody involved. Basically we have of course a large poultry industry in Southwest Missouri and the adjacent states. How quickly can you get the information out once it's been determined that the virus is within a flock in our area? How quickly can you get the information, how quickly can you get it to us, how transparent is it going to be to tell people, you know, 'this is an area you need to stay away from'?

SEC. JOHANNS: The process is going to be very transparent. Here is how this is going to work. I think I can walk you through what our testing regimen would be even today.

Let's say that a producer walks into their chicken barn and they see dead birds. And they take samples and those samples are shipped to us. From the time that we receive that information, we can have results back to them or we can have results on the H5N1 in about four hours. That's a screening test. Then we move to a confirmatory testing regimen where we can confirm the N-type in about two to three days.

But here's a very, very important point to make. At that point we will have the information as to whether it's H5N1, but we then need to take the next step and determine whether it's high-path or low-path. Keep in mind, low-path has been here a long time, about 100 years in the United States. Low-path is not something that one would panic over. We would certainly pay attention to it because of the potential that it could go to high-path. But determining whether it's high-path or low-path would then take about 5 to 10 days. This is not an overnight process.

So from start to finish, you are looking at a process that would take about 5 to 10 days to get a final confirmation on whether you're dealing with H5N1 high-path or low-path avian influenza.

Now here's a very important point to make. In a case of high-path avian influenza where we move in and destroy birds, we compensate the owner for that bird that is destroyed. We compensate for the cleanup and all the things that you do, the testing. If that owner is seeing those birds dying, I just have to tell you in all likelihood I think the destruction of that flock is going to proceed. I don't believe that an owner is going to wait for that confirmation if they are seeing pretty wholesale die-out of the flock. They are going to reach the conclusion that they are dealing with a high-path situation.

Low-path typically is not fatal to a bird; high-path is. So if you have a lot of birds dying in a domestic situation, I think you're going to see action starting right there.

REPORTER: Quickly a follow-up. If that would happen, would you send out an advisory on a low-path confirmation?

SEC. JOHANNS: We would send out an advisory when we have an H5N1. That's the point at which -- we do surveillance in testing, and if we get a confirmation on an H5N1 through screening through that four hour screening process, we would put that information out there.

Now again, we would be doing everything we could to work with you to get the word out that H5N1 can be both low-path and high-path. And we would put whatever we could in your hands to try to explain that and what's involved in the confirmatory testing, which would take some additional time.

MR. BOHN: Next question, please.

MR. BOHN: Next question, please.

OPERATOR: Kristin Espeland from Wyoming Public Radio.

REPORTER: Good afternoon. I'm wondering how much of a concern is antibiotic resistance in connection with bird flu. And if it's a big concern, what's the USDA prepared to do to take care of that? This is, of course, understanding that infected birds would most likely be destroyed, but I'm thinking before that fact.

SEC. JOHANNS: Yes. I can address that. Again getting back to this number of a billion broilers at any given time, and from hatch to processing 45 days, so you're getting this tremendous volume of birds turning over on a very frequent basis. Trying to treat high-path avian influenza through vaccination or a process like that isn't going to be very effective. For one thing, it's just so huge.

The attitude of the USDA in dealing with high-path avian influenza is to simply to eradicate it. Our attitude is, it's not something that we should mess around with. If we identify it or if we see birds dying in volume in a domestic situation, we should quarantine, we should isolate it, we should destroy the birds humanely, and then we should test to make sure we get the high-path avian influenza. We don't want it in our country. We want to do everything we can to aggressively eradicate it.

Low-path avian influenza, again that's much more common. Low-path avian influenza has been around a long time. Individual producers are probably making individual decisions on how they want to treat it or if they want to treat it. So low-path avian influenza typically doesn't have a mortality with birds. Birds pass through that flu season much like we pass through a flu season as humans. They recover and you just don't see any real consequences from the low-path.

REPORTER: A quick follow-up if I may. And what about antibiotic resistance in humans as a result of heavy use of antibiotics in poultry?

SEC. LEAVITT: Dr. Venkayya, would you like to deal with that?

DR. VENKAYYA: Well, I think, I wouldn't expect the issue of antibiotic resistance in humans to change significantly if we're dealing with a poultry outbreak. It's important to point out that while antibiotic resistance is relative in humans during a pandemic because many of the people with the pandemic strain of flu will also have or develop bacterial infections, there is I think unlikely to be a connection between what's happening in the poultry world and what's happening on the human health side in the short duration of the pandemic.