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President Asks Congress for $7.1 Billion for War on
Pandemic
Bush outlines pandemic flu strategy of preparation
and response
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Nov. 1, 2005 President Bush said today the key
elements of the U.S. strategy to avoid the pandemic flu are to detect
outbreaks anywhere in the world, to stockpile vaccines and antiviral
drugs, as well as improve our ability to rapidly produce new vaccines,
and prepare to respond at all levels of government should a pandemic
reach the U.S. He also asked Congress for $7.1 billion in emergency
funding to carry out the strategy.
He outlined the strategy at the National Institutes
of Health this morning.
"At this point, we do not have evidence that a
pandemic is imminent, he said.
At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in
the United States or the world. But if history is our guide, there is
reason to be concerned, he cautioned.
Most of the people in Southeast Asia who got sick
were handling infected birds," And while the avian flu virus has spread
from Asia to Europe, there are no reports of infected birds, animals, or
people in the United States.
Even if the virus does eventually appear on our
shores in birds, that does not mean people in our country will be
infected, he added.
Avian flu is still primarily an animal disease.
And as of now, unless people come into direct, sustained contact with
infected birds, it is unlikely they will come down with avian flu."
He said, Scientists and doctors cannot tell us
where or when the next pandemic will strike, or how severe it will be,
but most agree: at some point, we are likely to face another pandemic.
And the scientific community is increasingly concerned by a new
influenza virus known as H5N1 -- or avian flu -- that is now spreading
through bird populations across Asia, and has recently reached Europe.
I'm requesting a total of $7.1 billion in
emergency funding from the United States Congress, he said in
concluding. By making critical investments today, we'll strengthen our
ability to safeguard the American people in the awful event of a
devastating global pandemic, and at the same time will bring our
nation's public health and medical infrastructure more squarely in the
21st century.
The complete remarks of the President follow
below.
President Outlines
Pandemic Influenza Preparations and Response
William Natcher Center
National Naval Medical Center
Bethesda, Maryland
10:04 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT:
Thank you all. Michael, thank you very much for your introduction. And
thanks for the warm reception here at the National Institute of Health.
It's good to be back here again.
For more than a
century, the NIH has been at the forefront of this country's efforts to
prevent, detect and treat disease, and I appreciate the good work you're
doing here. This is an important facility, an important complex, and the
people who work here are really important to the security of this
nation. The scientists who have been supported by the folks who work
here have developed and improved vaccines for meningitis and whooping
cough and measles and mumps and rubella and chickenpox, and other
infectious diseases. Because of the revolutionary advances in medicine
pioneered with the help of the NIH, Americans no longer fear these
dreaded diseases -- many lives have been saved.
At this moment, the
men and women of the NIH are working to protect the American people from
another danger -- the risk of avian and pandemic influenza. Today, I
have come to talk about our nation's efforts to address this vital issue
to the health and the safety of all Americans. I'm here to discuss our
strategy to prevent and protect the American people from a possible
outbreak.
I appreciate
members of my Cabinet who are here. More importantly, I appreciate the
hard work you've done on this issue. Secretary Rice, Secretary Johanns,
Secretary Mineta, Secretary Nicholson, Secretary Chertoff. I appreciate
the fact that Dr. J.W. Lee, Director-General of the World Health
Organization has joined us. Dr. Lee, thank you for being here.
I want to recognize
Dr. David Nabarro, the Senior United Nations System Coordinator for
Avian and Human Influenza. Thanks for being here. This is -- you're
about to hear me talk about an international scope of response and
detection necessary to protect not only our own people, but people
around the world. And the fact that these two gentlemen are here is an
important signal.
I want to thank Dr.
Elias Zerhouni, he's the Director of the NIH; doing a fine job. I want
to thank Julie Gerberding, who's the Director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. I appreciate Dr. Rich Carmona, U.S. Surgeon
General. Dr. Tony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases. I want to thank Dr. Bruce Gellin, Director of
the National Vaccine Program Office. I want to thank Dr. Andy von
Eschenbach, who is the Acting Director of the FDA and the Director of
the National Cancer Institute.
I appreciate all
the members of the health care community who have joined us today. I
want to thank state and local officials who are here. I particularly
want to thank Senators Specter and Kennedy for coming, as well as
Congressmen Linder, Burgess and Price. I appreciate you all taking time
to be here.
Most Americans are
familiar with the influenza or the "flu" as a respiratory illness that
makes hundreds of thousands of people sick every year. This fall as the
flu season approaches, millions of our fellow citizens are once again
visiting their doctors for their annual flu shot. I had mine. For most,
it's just simply a precautionary measure to avoid the fever or a sore
throat or muscle aches that come with the flu. Seasonal flu is extremely
dangerous for some -- people whose immune systems have been weakened by
age or illness. But it is not usually life-threatening for most healthy
people.
Pandemic flu is
another matter. Pandemic flu occurs when a new strain of influenza
emerges that can be transmitted easily from person to person -- and for
which there is little or no natural immunity. Unlike seasonal flu, most
people have not built up resistance to it. And unlike seasonal flu, it
can kill those who are young and the healthy as well as those who are
frail and sick.
At this moment,
there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world. But if
history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last
century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza
pandemics -- and viruses from birds contributed to all of them. The
first, which struck in 1918, killed over half-a-million Americans and
more than 20 million people across the globe. One-third of the U.S.
population was infected, and life expectancy in our country was reduced
by 13 years. The 1918 pandemic was followed by pandemics in 1957 and
1968 which killed tens of thousands of Americans, and millions across
the world.
Three years ago,
the world had a preview of the disruption an influenza pandemic can
cause, when a previously unknown virus called SARS appeared in rural
China. When an infected doctor carried the virus out of China, it spread
to Vietnam and Singapore and Canada within a month. Before long, the
SARS virus had spread to nearly 30 countries on six continents. It
infected more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800. One elderly woman
brought the virus from Hong Kong to Toronto, where it quickly spread to
her son and then to others. Eventually, four others arrived with the
virus and hundreds of Canadians fell ill with SARS, and dozens died.
By one estimate,
the SARS outbreak cost the Asian-Pacific region about $40 billion. The
airline industry was hit particularly hard, with air travel to Asia
dropping 45 percent in the year after the outbreak. All this was caused
by a limited outbreak of a virus that infected thousands and lasted
about six months. A global influenza pandemic that infects millions and
lasts from one to three years could be far worse.
Scientists and
doctors cannot tell us where or when the next pandemic will strike, or
how severe it will be, but most agree: at some point, we are likely to
face another pandemic. And the scientific community is increasingly
concerned by a new influenza virus known as H5N1 -- or avian flu -- that
is now spreading through bird populations across Asia, and has recently
reached Europe.
This new strain of
influenza has infected domesticated birds like ducks and chickens, as
well as long-range migratory birds. In 1997, the first recorded outbreak
among people took place in Hong Kong, when 18 people became infected and
six died from the disease. Public health officials in the region took
aggressive action and successfully contained the spread of the virus.
Avian flu struck again in late 2003, and has infected over 120 people in
Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia, and killed more than 60 --
that's a fatality rate of about 50 percent.
At this point, we
do not have evidence that a pandemic is imminent. Most of the people in
Southeast Asia who got sick were handling infected birds. And while the
avian flu virus has spread from Asia to Europe, there are no reports of
infected birds, animals, or people in the United States. Even if the
virus does eventually appear on our shores in birds, that does not mean
people in our country will be infected. Avian flu is still primarily an
animal disease. And as of now, unless people come into direct, sustained
contact with infected birds, it is unlikely they will come down with
avian flu.
While avian flu has
not yet acquired the ability to spread easily from human to human, there
is still cause for vigilance. The virus has developed some
characteristics needed to cause a pandemic: It has demonstrated the
ability to infect human beings, and it has produced a fatal illness in
humans. If the virus were to develop the capacity for sustained
human-to-human transmission, it could spread quickly across the globe.
Our country has
been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland -- and time to
prepare. It's my responsibility as President to take measures now to
protect the American people from the possibility that human-to-human
transmission may occur. So several months ago, I directed all relevant
departments and agencies in the federal government to take steps to
address the threat of avian and pandemic flu. Since that time, my
administration has developed a comprehensive national strategy, with
concrete measures we can take to prepare for an influenza pandemic.
Today, I am
announcing key elements of that strategy. Our strategy is designed to
meet three critical goals: First, we must detect outbreaks that occur
anywhere in the world; second, we must protect the American people by
stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, and improve our ability to
rapidly produce new vaccines against a pandemic strain; and, third, we
must be ready to respond at the federal, state and local levels in the
event that a pandemic reaches our shores.
To meet these three
goals, our strategy will require the combined efforts of government
officials in public health, medical, veterinary and law enforcement
communities and the private sector. It will require the active
participation of the American people. And it will require the immediate
attention of the United States Congress so we can have the resources in
place to begin implementing this strategy right away.
The first part of
our strategy is to detect outbreaks before they spread across the world.
In the fight against avian and pandemic flu, early detection is our
first line of defense. A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire: if caught
early, it might be extinguished with limited damage; if allowed to
smolder undetected, it can grow to an inferno that spreads quickly
beyond our ability to control it. So we're taking immediate steps to
ensure early warning of an avian or pandemic flu outbreak among animals
or humans anywhere in the world.
In September at the
United Nations, I announced a new International Partnership on Avian and
Pandemic Influenza -- a global network of surveillance and preparedness
that will help us to detect and respond quickly to any outbreaks of
disease. The partnership requires participating countries that face an
outbreak to immediately share information and provide samples to the
World Health Organization. By requiring transparency, we can respond
more rapidly to dangerous outbreaks.
Since we announced
this global initiative, the response from across the world has been very
positive. Already, 88 countries and nine international organizations
have joined the effort. Senior officials from participating governments
recently convened the partnership's first meeting here in Washington.
Together, we're
working to control and monitor avian flu in Asia, and to ensure that all
nations have structures in place to recognize and report outbreaks
before they spread beyond human control. I've requested $251 million
from Congress to help our foreign partners train local medical
personnel, expand their surveillance and testing capacity, draw up
preparedness plans, and take other vital actions to detect and contain
outbreaks.
A flu pandemic
would have global consequences, so no nation can afford to ignore this
threat, and every nation has responsibilities to detect and stop its
spread.
Here in the United
States, we're doing our part. To strengthen domestic surveillance, my
administration is launching the National Bio-surveillance Initiative.
This initiative will help us rapidly detect, quantify and respond to
outbreaks of disease in humans and animals, and deliver information
quickly to state, and local, and national and international public
health officials. By creating systems that provide continuous
situational awareness, we're more likely to be able to stop, slow, or
limit the spread of the pandemic and save American lives.
The second part of
our strategy is to protect the American people by stockpiling vaccines
and antiviral drugs, and accelerating development of new vaccine
technologies. One of the challenges presented by a pandemic is that
scientists need a sample of the new strain before they can produce a
vaccine against it. This means it is difficult to produce a pandemic
vaccine before the pandemic actually appears -- and so there may not be
a vaccine capable of fully immunizing our citizens from the new
influenza virus during the first several months of a pandemic.
To help protect our
citizens during these early months when a fully effective vaccine would
not be available, we're taking a number of immediate steps. Researchers
here at the NIH have developed a vaccine based on the current strain of
the avian flu virus; the vaccine is already in clinical trials. And I am
asking that the Congress fund $1.2 billion for the Department of Health
and Human Services to purchase enough doses of this vaccine from
manufacturers to vaccinate 20 million people.
This vaccine would
not be a perfect match to pandemic flu because the pandemic strain would
probably differ somewhat from the avian flu virus it grew from. But a
vaccine against the current avian flu virus would likely offer some
protection against a pandemic strain, and possibly save many lives in
the first critical months of an outbreak.
We're also
increasing stockpiles of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu and Relenza.
Antiviral drugs cannot prevent people from contracting the flu. It can
-- but they can reduce the severity of the illness when taken within 48
hours of getting sick. So in addition to vaccines, which are the
foundation of our pandemic response, I am asking Congress for a billion
dollars to stockpile additional antiviral medications, so that we have
enough on hand to help treat first responders and those on the front
lines, as well as populations most at risk in the first stages of a
pandemic.
To protect the
greatest possible number of Americans during a pandemic, the cornerstone
of our strategy is to develop new technologies that will allow us to
produce new vaccines rapidly. If a pandemic strikes our country -- if a
pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that
will allow us to bring a new vaccine online quickly and manufacture
enough to immunize every American against the pandemic strain.
I recently met with
leaders of the vaccine industry. They assured me that they will work
with the federal government to expand the vaccine industry, so that our
country is better prepared for any pandemic. Today, the NIH is working
with vaccine makers to develop new cell-culture techniques that will
help us bring a pandemic flu vaccine to the American people faster in
the event of an outbreak. Right now, most vaccines are still produced
with 1950's technology using chicken eggs that are infected with the
influenza virus and then used to develop and produce vaccines. In the
event of a pandemic, this antiquated process would take many, many
months to produce a vaccine, and it would not allow us to produce enough
vaccine for every American in time.
Since American
lives depend on rapid advances in vaccine production technology, we must
fund a crash program to help our best scientists bring the next
generation of technology online rapidly. I'm asking Congress for $2.8
billion to accelerate development of cell-culture technology. By
bringing cell-culture technology from the research laboratory into the
production line, we should be able to produce enough vaccine for every
American within six months of the start of a pandemic.
I'm also asking
Congress to remove one of the greatest obstacles to domestic vaccine
production: the growing burden of litigation. In the past three decades,
the number of vaccine manufacturers in America has plummeted, as the
industry has been flooded with lawsuits. Today, there is only one
manufacturer in the United States that can produce influenza vaccine.
That leaves our nation vulnerable in the event of a pandemic. We must
increase the number of vaccine manufacturers in our country, and improve
our domestic production capacity. So Congress must pass liability
protection for the makers of life-saving vaccines.
By making wise
investments in technology and breaking down barriers to vaccine
production, we're working toward a clear goal: In the event of a
pandemic, we must have enough vaccine for every American.
The third part of
our strategy is to ensure that we are ready to respond to a pandemic
outbreak. A pandemic is unlike other natural disasters; outbreaks can
happen simultaneously in hundreds, or even thousands, of locations at
the same time. And unlike storms or floods, which strike in an instant
and then recede, a pandemic can continue spreading destruction in
repeated waves that can last for a year or more.
To respond to a
pandemic, we must have emergency plans in place in all 50 states and
every local community. We must ensure that all levels of government are
ready to act to contain an outbreak. We must be able to deliver vaccines
and other treatments to frontline responders and at-risk populations.
So my
administration is working with public health officials in the medical
community to develop -- to develop effective pandemic emergency plans.
We're working at the federal level. We're looking at ways and options to
coordinate our response with state and local leaders. I've asked Mike
Leavitt -- Secretary Leavitt -- to bring together state and local public
health officials from across the nation to discuss their plans for a
pandemic, and to help them improve pandemic planning at the community
level. I'm asking Congress to provide $583 million for pandemic
preparedness, including $100 million to help states complete and
exercise their pandemic plans now, before a pandemic strikes.
If an influenza
pandemic strikes, every nation, every state in this Union, and every
community in these states, must be ready.
To respond to a
pandemic, we need medical personnel and adequate supplies of equipment.
In a pandemic, everything from syringes to hospital beds, respirators,
masks and protective equipment would be in short supply. So the federal
government is stockpiling critical supplies in locations across America
as part of the Strategic National Stockpile. The Department of Health
and Human Services is helping states create rosters of medical personnel
who are willing to help alleviate local shortfalls during a pandemic.
And every federal department involved in health care is expanding plans
to ensure that all federal medical facilities, personnel, and response
capabilities are available to support local communities in the event of
a pandemic crisis.
To respond to a
pandemic, the American people need to have information to protect
themselves and others. In a pandemic, an infection carried by one person
can be transmitted to many other people, and so every American must take
personal responsibility for stopping the spread of the virus. To provide
Americans with more information about pandemics, we're launching a new
website, pandemicflu.gov. That ought to be easy for people to remember:
pandemicflu.gov. The website will keep our citizens informed about the
preparations underway, steps they can take now to prepare for a
pandemic, and what every American can do to decrease their risk of
contracting and spreading the disease in the event of an outbreak.
To respond to a
pandemic, members of the international community will continue to work
together. An influenza pandemic would be an event with global
consequences, and therefore we're continuing to meet to develop a global
response. We've called nations together in the past, and will continue
to call nations together to work with public health experts to better
coordinate our efforts to deal with a disaster.
Now, all the steps
I've outlined today require immediate resources. Because a pandemic
could strike at any time, we can't waste time in preparing. So to meet
all our goals, I'm requesting a total of $7.1 billion in emergency
funding from the United States Congress. By making critical investments
today, we'll strengthen our ability to safeguard the American people in
the awful event of a devastating global pandemic, and at the same time
will bring our nation's public health and medical infrastructure more
squarely in the 21st century.
The steps I have
outlined will also help our nation in other critical ways. By perfecting
cell-based technologies now, we will be able to produce vaccines for a
range of illnesses and save countless lives. By strengthening our
domestic vaccine industry, we can help ensure that our nation will never
again have a shortage of vaccine for seasonal -- seasonal flu. And by
putting in place and exercising pandemic emergency plans across the
nation, we can help our nation prepare for other dangers -- such as a
terrorist attack using chemical or biological weapons.
Leaders at every
level of government have a responsibility to confront dangers before
they appear, and engage the American people on the best course of
action. It is vital that our nation discuss and address the threat of
pandemic flu now. There is no pandemic flu in our country or in the
world at this time -- but if we wait for a pandemic to appear, it will
be too late to prepare, and one day many lives could be needlessly lost
because we failed to act today.
By preparing now,
we can give our citizens some peace of mind knowing that our nation is
ready to act at the first sign of danger, and that we have the plans in
place to prevent and, if necessary, withstand an influenza pandemic.
Thank you for
coming today to let me outline my strategy. Thank the United States
Congress for considering this measure. May God bless you all.
(Applause.)
END 10:30 A.M. EST
 In
Focus: Healthcare
Fact
Sheet: Safeguarding America Against Pandemic Influenza
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