CBS 2 CHICAGO
Reporter- Mary Ann Childers
(CBS) CHICAGO Saying that failure to act now could cost many lives, President Bush is proposing a readiness plan to fight bird flu should the worst fear happen and it hits people hard. As Medical Editor Mary Ann Childers reports, it's been a year in the making and it's going to be expensive.
The president outlined a three-part, $7 billion strategy to prepare for a flu pandemic.
"Our country has been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland, and time to prepare," Bush said.
Calling early detection the first line of defense, Bush wants $251 million for surveillance around the world. Others agree that money spent overseas would protect us at home.
"I think we'd have difficulty containing it. That's why it's so important for us to catch this as quickly as possible and that's why investment in public health infrastructure overseas is so important," said Sen. Barack Obama.
NIH researchers are now testing a vaccine. It's not a perfect match for the strain of bird flu that might infect humans, but the president wants 1.2 billion to buy enough to vaccinate 20 million people, and 2.8 billion to develop new vaccine making technology.
An estimated $583 million more would go to state and local governments.
"On this floor in a disaster situation, we could handle around 70 to 75 patients on this floor," said Dr. Dino Rumoro at Rush University Medical Center.
This emergency medicine expert says the key is a plan to expand the ER, cancel elective surgery and turn the whole floor into an isolation area. But will that be enough if thousands of sick people came here for care at once?
"If that day ever did come true, we would all be in a lot of trouble," Rumoro said.
Rumoro believes the government's priority should be developing a vaccine. And that's where the president is putting the most money.
But that's still not going to make it easy. Tonight at 10PM, we'll talk with a vaccine expert about why fighting bird flu is going to be so tricky.