Virginia prepares for a pandemic flu outbreak

Thousands of boxes of the anti-viral medicine Tamiflu are stockpiled in a Virginia warehouse in a secure, unspecified location. The medicine may be the ultimate health insurance for people across the state in the event of a pandemic flu.

Retired Colonel Bob Mauskaupf with the Virginia Department of Health says a pandemic flu would be catastrophic. One virus that has been watched closely and may one day lead to a pandemic is Avian Influenza, also known as Bird Flu.

A bird flu pandemic wouldn’t just be about people getting sick. It’s about people dying. According to the World Health Organization, since 2003 there have been 387 cases of avian flu in people and 245 of those people died.

Mauskaupf who heads up Virginia’s Pandemic Operations confirms that percentage has gone up, “It has risen from 49% to 63 percent…it is it’s a nasty bug.”

Right now, the world is in stage three which means the avian flu has been passed from animals to people. A few years ago stories dominated local and national news because of the fear of what might happen next.

Mauskaupf says, “If a flu virus like the bird flu virus the h5n1 were to morph into a form that was transmissible person to person we would go into stage 4.”

After that, state and federal government would move forward and start the process for distributing Tamiflu and other supplies to people in local communities. The secure warehouse has enough Tamiflu for 775 thousand Virginians in the event of a pandemic flu. The VDH would be able to get more from the federal government if needed. Tamiflu will be distributed to 600 locations across the state and the aim of the VDH is to make sure you don’t have to drive more than twelve miles to the nearest location.

But Mauskaupf cautions, “We shouldn’t depend on drugs as the only answer.“

Not at all, because according to the Virginia Department of Health’s informational video about pandemic flu, people who are relatively healthy will not be the first to get Tamiflu which reduces the severity of symptoms when taken at the first signs of sickness. Healthcare workers and those at highest risk for complications will get it first.

Mass flu vaccine clinics have been held across the state as a way of practicing in the in the event of a pandemic. But a vaccine wouldn't be available until 4 to 6 months after the outbreak.

While many scientists insist the flu pandemic of 1918 that killed millions across the world and more than 15 thousand people in Virginia is a piece of history that will be repeated, Mauskaupf says Virginia is prepared, ”We’re rated 100 percent by CDC, us and California… the only two in the country.”