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U.S. Department o Health and Human Services
Pandemic PlanningUpdate VI
 A Report from Secretary Michael O. Leavitt 
 
 January 8
 , 200
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“Te history o pandemics is not so much the history o health as it is the history o humanity. When pandemicsstrike, they cause massive sickness and terrible loss o lie. Tey even reshape nations. ” 
—HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt
 
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Message From The Secretary
A scant 33 months ago, I sent my rst message about a race that HHS had justbegun. As I said then, it was a race against a ast-moving virulent virus with thepotential to cause an infuenza pandemic. Since then, we have mobilized expertsand resources across the country and around the world. I now send you thisnal message, as I look back at the unprecedented progress we have made inenergizing a national pandemic infuenza preparedness movement in those 33months.Today, many people mistakenly think infuenza pandemics are athing o the past, but infuenza has struck hard in the era o modernmedicine – much harder than most people realize. And it willstrike again. Pandemics are hard things to talk about. When onediscusses them in advance, it sounds alarmist. Ater a pandemicstarts, no matter how much preparation has been done, it will beinadequate.In November 2005, President Bush mobilized the nation to prepareor an infuenza pandemic. He called or the deployment o a $7.1billion national pandemic plan. Congress responded quickly. AsSecretary o HHS, I was given responsibility to implement the plan.Ultimately, the key to preparing or a pandemic is to develop, stockpile, andprepare to distribute vaccines and antivirals – vaccines to prevent people rombecoming inected by a virus, and antivirals to treat them i they are inected. But,how to achieve this? Developing and stockpiling vaccines is not a job or any onegovernment. It is not even a job or any one nation.Rather, it requires cooperation among nations, cooperation among dierentgovernment entities within nations, and cooperation between governments andthe private sector. Pandemic preparedness requires that all o these dierentelements work together. The better they do so, the better prepared we will be as anation.Local preparedness is the oundation o pandemic readiness. In addition to Stategovernors, leadership must come rom mayors, county commissioners, schoolprincipals, aith leaders, college presidents, corporate planners, and the entirehealthcare inrastructure.One o our highest priorities is to enhance and expand U.S.-based vaccineproduction capacity to the point that it can generate enough pandemic infuenzavaccine or every American within six months o the time that the actual pandemicvirus is identied, wherever in the world it is identied.Today with over $1 billion o HHS unding, six companies are in various stageso implementing commercial-scale production o cell-based methods and/orexpanding their capacity or conventional manuacturing using chicken eggs. Wewill reach our goal o having the needed capacity by 2011.
“It’s not enough just to havewritten a plan…you alsohave to check it, test it and make sure that it works.” 
– Dr. David Nabarro,United Nations InfuenzaCoordinator
 
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2004 – November 2005
Message From The Secretary,
(cont.)
Partly as a result o these eorts, we have now procured 12.2 million treatmentcourses (each course provides a ull treatment or one person) o H5N1 pre-pandemic infuenza vaccine. I the virus mutates to where it has pandemicproperties, a new vaccine will be developed to match it exactly, but this stockpiledvaccine will provide some protection in the interim.This stockpile is available to support clinical trials and to protecthealthcare workers, rst responders, and other critical workers in theearly stages o a pandemic. We plan to stockpile additional doses opre-pandemic vaccine by the end o 2008.We have reached our goal o stockpiling enough pandemic infuenzaantivirals to cover 44 million people, which will help slow the spread oan emerging pandemic.State governments have taken advantage o a chance to purchase upto 31 million treatment-courses o antiviral drugs while receiving a 25percent ederal subsidy and while making use o ederal “best price”contracts. Some states have also purchased additional antiviral drugs,using these ederal contracts, with unsubsidized unds. To date, theStates have purchased 22 million treatment courses o Tamifu® andRelenza® pandemic stockpiles.We have awarded a total o $600 million or State and local preparedness.Through these grants, HHS has assisted in building response elements in localcommunities and has supported expanded interoperability. This means States canhelp each other on an almost interchangeable basis.We have worked with States and local communities to update their pandemicinfuenza plans and to ensure that they evaluate their plans by conductingexercises. To make sure that States knew the importance o this eort, weconducted a pandemic infuenza summit in each o the ty United States andevery one o the U.S. territories. I personally attended about three-quarters o theState summits. The summits brought together government representatives withhealthcare proessionals, schools, and the private sector, to advance State andcommunity preparedness.
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