MALAYSIA'S 1941 PEARL HARBOR ?

I was laid low for most part of the past week by flu whilst I was in KL and in true Penang style, gasped when I was billed by a GP in Jalan SS2/66 -RM62 for a small bottle of cough syrup (?) and some pills meant for flu. Even as I continue to feel the effects of a bad flu, I reflected on the impending avian flu pandemic. Almost two months past, it was the hottest topic within each relevant government agencies. Today hardly a flutter, unfortunately unlike birds, the agencies apparently shifted into stealth mode and probably hibernated.
In its effort to combat the avian flu, the Malaysian Health Ministry (MOH) has currently set aside 21 hospitals for containment of the avian flu. This was the core strategy in its fight against SARS. It worked but with H5N1 where transmission will be basically airborne such strategy may not be effective enough. In the US, one of the major platform in this fight is vaccines and anti viral drugs - a request for US7.1 billion has been put through. In Malaysia for this life and death fight, an additional budget of RM60 million (US16 million) has been allocated and presently there are enough stocks for only 60,000 people. This is far short of the initial MOH September promise in ensuring that 10.4 million Malaysian will be covered.
Education of the public, a key in controlling the spread of H5N1 has also failed to take off. Strike a conversation with Joe-public and the best case feedback is "bolih mati-lah". Public servants dealing with health issues are not much better informed.
As the avian flu fire rages even more closer and fiercer, let this not be Malaysia's "1941 Pearl Harbor" where almost everthing was known but nothing much was done.

Previous Blogs
WHEN BIG BAD BIRD PAYS US A VISIT. - July 8th
FROM SARS TO AVIAN FLU - August 28th
CATEGORY 5 "HURRICANE AMESELES" SIGHTED -Sepetember 24th

US Officials Practice Bird Flu Response

Link : Washington Post By Charles Babington

Readiness for a possible avian flu pandemic requires not only government action but also preparations by families, businesses, schools and churches, White House officials said yesterday after conducting a drill on the topic.
"We all must be prepared, and we all have a role to play in the nation's preparation," Frances Frago Townsend, White House homeland security adviser, told reporters after the four-hour drill, which involved some Cabinet members, military officers and others. The "tabletop exercise" was meant to gauge government responses to a major U.S. outbreak of bird flu, which has killed at least 69 people in Asia since late 2003.
Townsend declined to give details about the drill or its results. "It's meant to push federal resources to the breaking point and to ensure that we're prepared, that we identify gaps and then we plan to fill them," she said. "We accomplished that this morning."
In such drills, she said, participants are presented with a scenario, identify options and ask whether each of the federal agencies has a plan to fill gaps that have been identified. "And, quite frankly, I think we did quite well.".....
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the federal government alone cannot handle a major flu outbreak. "State and local governments, state and local communities, schools need to have a plan, businesses need to have a plan, faith organizations need to have a plan," he said. "The public health community understands a pandemic. . . . It's now time to engage a broader community so that we have a true nationwide response effort that's not only planned, but exercised and ready."
Neither he nor Townsend offered specifics for possible plans, but each urged Americans to seek information from the Web site http://pandemicflu.gov/ . Leavitt plans to visit health officials in every state to discuss strategies.
He and Townsend said vaccines and antiviral drugs will be central to combating a major flu outbreak, and they urged Congress to fund Bush's request for $7.1 billion to speed production of such drugs..
Leavitt said: "We need to have a domestic surveillance system. When it happens in the United States, having the capacity to know what's occurring within the health care system is of vital importance."
Townsend said: "We currently have no evidence that a pandemic flu in this country is imminent. That said, we are fairly warned, and the time to prepare for that pandemic is now."