Experts: We can't stop flu

Bird flu virus in a Vietnamese girl has been resistant to the main anti-viral drug.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
CHICAGO -- In the face of an uncertain threat that avian flu could cause a new pandemic, political leaders at every level are grappling with the disquieting fact that the United States has almost no ability to stop an outbreak of the disease if it strikes here soon.
No one knows if bird flu, which is more dangerous than ordinary flu because people have no natural immunity to it, will ignite a global epidemic like the one that swept the world in 1918.
Hundreds of millions of birds infected with the new strain have spread through Asia in recent years, and on Thursday, European Union officials confirmed that the virus has struck birds in Turkey, the strain's first appearance in Europe.
The widespread bird problem could provide a breeding ground for the virus to mutate into a form able to spread among humans.
Senior veterinary officials from around the European Union agreed Friday on new measures aimed at preventing the lethal strain of bird flu from entering the bloc.
The officials also moved to calm fears on a continent with vivid memories of mad cow disease, saying there was no reason to avoid cooked chicken because bird flu is killed in seconds when the meat is cooked.
The new measures, agreed upon after two days of emergency talks, focus on infection-control measures on farms and expanding early-detection systems to high-risk areas, such as wetlands frequented by wild birds, said a statement issued late Friday by the EU.
Situation with drugs
Meanwhile, bird flu virus found in a Vietnamese girl was resistant to the main drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a sign that it's important to keep a second drug on hand as well, a researcher said Friday.
He said the finding was no reason to panic.
The drug in question, Tamiflu, still attacks "the vast majority of the viruses out there," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The drug, produced by Swiss-based Roche Holding AG, is in short supply as nations around the world try to stock up on it in case of a global flu pandemic.
Kawaoka said the case of resistant virus in the 14-year-old girl is "only one case, and whether that condition was something unique we don't know."
Congress and the Bush administration are scrambling to improve the nation's scant supply of vaccines and anti-viral drugs that could fight such infections. Lawmakers said the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina highlighted weaknesses in disaster readiness.
But for now, experts say the response to bird flu would consist mostly of unproven measures such as closing schools, canceling most large indoor gatherings and isolating the estimated one-fifth of the population that would fall sick.
If better medications are not in place, ordinary citizens could do little beyond practicing good hygiene or wearing protective masks, epidemiologists said.
In one sign of the heightened awareness of flu -- and the uncertainty over what to do about it -- President Bush this month made an impromptu suggestion that the military could help quarantine entire regions of the country. Yet flu experts within and outside government said such quarantines would accomplish little because of the flu's ability to spread quickly.