WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. health officials have adopted the opinion a bird flu pandemic is likely at some point, and swung into high gear to prevent or manage one.
Saturday, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt left on a 10-day trip to several Asian nations to discuss planning for a pandemic flu, one day after President George Bush appealed to vaccine makers to step up production.
On the prospect of an avian flu pandemic in the United States, Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, chief of the molecular pathology department at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, told the New York Times: "I would not say it's imminent or inevitable."
However, Taubenberger said he believes that there will eventually be a pandemic, but not necessarily the H5N1 bird flu.
Alarm heightened on Thursday when a scientific team led by Taubenberger reported that the 1918 flu virus, which killed 50 million people worldwide, was also a bird flu that jumped directly to humans.
The 1918 flu was highly contagious, while today's strain has -- so far -- shown little ability to spread from person to person, the report said.
