U.S. report card shows work ahead for bird flu plan

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has helped many countries watch and prepare for a bird flu pandemic, but lacks the rapid tests and hospital capacity to cope with one at home, the White House said on Tuesday.

The federal government issued a report card one year after it released a pandemic influenza plan, and said agencies had finished many of the hundreds of tasks assigned.

But some of the most difficult tasks remain, including the ability to quickly detect the spread of disease, capacity to make vaccines quickly and in large-enough amounts, and detailed plans on who gets drugs and vaccines if a pandemic hits.

"We have limited surveillance capability here in the United States," said Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, assistant to President George W. Bush for biodefense.

Hospitals are already overwhelmed with day-to-day patients. "We are almost certainly not going to have sufficient health and medical capacity to take care of the large number of individuals that would be presented by a large pandemic," Venkayya told a briefing.

The report noted that a billion dollars has been invested in upgrading vaccine manufacturing. It said U.S. antiviral drug production capacity was at 80 million regimens per year.

Experts agree that a pandemic of some sort is inevitable. No one can predict when, or what disease, although the H5N1 virus that has infected birds in 50 countries is the main suspect.

It has killed 192 out of the 318 people infected since 2003 and a few mutations could make it flash around the world, infecting tens of millions and killing many of them.