White House Plan Defers Leadership In Bird-Flu Fight

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/03/AR2006050301487.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

White House Plan Defers Leadership In Bird-Flu Fight

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 4, 2006; Page A03

The Bush administration plan for an influenza pandemic released yesterday hinges on sharing authority with global agencies such as the World Health Organization, and, at the opposite end of the spectrum, with governors, mayors and school superintendents.

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At the same time, the road map -- developed to support an equally voluminous pandemic "strategy" unveiled in November -- lays out an ambitious agenda of more than 300 tasks for federal agencies, along with a timetable for completing them.

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Nevertheless, many crucial questions about the government's response remain unanswered in the "Implementation Plan of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza."

They include how officials would decide who should get limited supplies of vaccine and antiviral drugs; whether the government would dip into those domestic supplies to help contain a foreign outbreak; at what point to trigger mass treatment of U.S. citizens in an effort to contain the virus here; and how travel and border-crossing might be limited....