President George W. Bush asked vaccine makers yesterday to do their utmost to boost flu vaccine production, while officials from 80 countries and the United Nations wrapped up a meeting on ways to fight a feared influenza pandemic.
Neither session provided any immediate solutions, but US officials said they served to raise the profile of the potential crisis and start setting up the networks needed to deal with outbreaks.
"I think what this is, is ratcheting this up," said Dr Bruce Gellin, vaccine coordinator at the US Department of Heath and Human Services and coordinator of the federal influenza preparedness plan.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing 60 of them. If it acquires the ability to pass easily from person to person, it could kill millions in the space of a few months, experts say.
The world does not have enough vaccine to fight off annual flu, let alone a pandemic of avian flu, and part of the problem is that very few companies make the vaccine. Antiviral drugs can reduce the severity of a flu attack, but are in short supply.
Democratic members of Congress expressed concern about this and asked Bush to detail his preparations.
"While other nations have ordered enough antiviral medication to treat between 20 and 40 per cent of their populations, the federal government has only ordered enough to treat less than 2 per cent of Americans," Nevada Democratic Senator Harry Reid and five colleagues wrote in a letter to Bush. Last year there was a shortage of annual flu vaccine.
Congress and HHS agencies have been working to find ways to lure companies back into the business of making it.