09 June 2006
U.S. Health Secretary Urges Central America To Plan for Pandemic, June 8, 2006(Leavitt, in Panama, outlines hemispheric partnership in disease prevention)
By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt urged regional cooperation and partnership in preparing for a human influenza pandemic when he spoke to Central American health ministers June 8.
At the meeting in Panama City, Panama, Leavitt outlined initiatives already launched to step up the region’s capability to fight infectious disease, anticipating that the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus that already has stricken much of the world soon will arrive in the Western Hemisphere.
In late 2003, the H5N1 influenza virus began appearing among birds in Southeast Asia, and since has spread to more than 50 nations, infecting wild birds, backyard poultry and commercial poultry flocks. More than 200 million birds have died or been destroyed to prevent further spread of the virus.
In 10 nations, humans also have been infected by this deadly flu, usually after close contact with ailing birds. The World Health Organization has confirmed deaths of 128 people due to H5N1, more than half of those known to have contracted the disease.
International health officials warn that the virus might mutate to become contagious among humans, a development which could set off a global influenza pandemic among humans.
Migratory birds are one means by which the virus can be transported from country to country, so officials in the Americas are bracing for the arrival of the disease.
As Leavitt has traveled the United States and the world in recent months, urging pandemic preparedness, he has presented his audiences with historical facts about the effects of past pandemics, and the prospect of such episodes in the future.
“It is estimated that, in all of Latin America, about 766,000 people died during the Great Pandemic of 1918,” said Leavitt. “It was especially virulent in rural areas of Central and South America, and it touched many nations deeply.”
U.S. health officials have a long-standing working relationship with Panama’s Gorgas Memorial Institute as part of the network of worldwide disease surveillance. That relationship expanded in April, Leavitt said, when he signed an agreement with Gorgas and Panamanian health officials to step up joint activities.
“United States health experts are working with their counterparts in Panama to enhance: surveillance capacity, laboratory testing, diagnosis, treatment and epidemiological investigations,” Leavitt said.
Other joint U.S.-Central American health initiatives noted by Leavitt include:
• The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has a more than 75-year history of research in the region, with special knowledge of migratory bird patterns;
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has launched a new program with the government of Panama to prevent the spread of disease in the poultry industry; and
• The U.S. Agency for International Development is working closely with the Pan American Health Organization on improving avian influenza preparedness. (See fact sheet.)
The United States has pledged more than $360 million in international assistance to help other nations improve their capabilities to detect, contain and control infectious disease in animal and human populations. (See related article.)
The full text of Leavitt’s remarks as prepared for delivery is available on the Web site of the Department of Health and Human Services.
For additional information on the disease and efforts to combat it, see Bird Flu (Avian Influenza).
