OFFICIALS: TV MOVIE ALARMING BIRD FLU DANGER CALLED OVERSTATED.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

Local and federal health officials say an ABC movie dramatizing a worldwide bird flu pandemic is an inaccurate depiction of the most likely scenario.

But officials urged Los Angeles County residents to take precautions, getting flu shots and practicing good hygiene and hand washing, in the event the virus does mutate into a form that can spread among people.

``I don't think it was a realistic portrayal of the most likely scenario for pandemic flu,'' county Health Officer Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding said. ``It was not a documentary. It was a made-for-TV drama. Everything was just sort of over the top.

``To suggest we're going to have something worse than the worst pandemic we've had in recent times -- the 1918-19 (influenza) pandemic -- I don't think that's in the realm of likelihood.''

``Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America,'' which aired Tuesday night, dramatized an outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu virus from its origins in a Hong Kong market to a pandemic virus that became easily transmittable among humans and spread rapidly around the world, killing several hundred million people.

In December, the World Health Organization estimated that a worldwide pandemic could kill up to 7 million people and sicken billions more. The Lowy Institute for International Policy, an independent international think tank based in Australia, calculated that a worst-case scenario could kill as many as 142 million people worldwide and cause $4.4 trillion in economic losses.

But Fielding said the next pandemic could be much milder than the one in 1918-19 because of modern technology that includes better medicine for bacterial infections and the availability of ventilators.

The H5N1 virus has killed tens of thousands of birds and has spread rapidly throughout Asia, Eastern Europe and parts of Africa. As of Thursday, 208 people have been infected worldwide, including 115 who have died. Most were poultry workers.

At a pandemic-flu summit in March in Los Angeles, health officials predicted that birds carrying the virus would likely arrive in the United States this summer.

While no cases have been reported in the United States, health officials worry that the virus could mutate and launch a worldwide pandemic.

``I think the movie has an extreme catastrophic story line, but the movie does touch on some important issues that could unfold in a severe pandemic, including the issue of limited vaccine, no vaccine being available for six months and the limited amount of antiviral drugs that would be available,'' said Bill Hall, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Currently, the federal government is stockpiling enough antiviral medication to treat 25 percent of the U.S. population. To date, the federal government has purchased 26 million antiviral treatment courses and expects to have 81 million by the end of 2008.

In the event of a pandemic, no vaccines would be available for at least six months, but the federal government has been developing and stockpiling experimental ``pre-pandemic'' vaccines that could offer some level of immunity.

Having a stockpile of this vaccine for up to 20 million people could help delay or lessen the initial impact of a pandemic while vaccine against the actual pandemic strain is developed and produced.

In the event of a pandemic, infants, the elderly, those with underlying health conditions and health care workers would likely be the first to receive the vaccine.

For information and tips on how to prepare for a possible pandemic, visit www.pandemicflu.gov.

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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