Annie Skaggs will be a road warrior if an influenza pandemic strikes her community. She's stocked her 1997 Ford Escort wagon
with goggles, gloves, a heavy-duty mask, gowns, stethoscope, and other medical gear.
Pandemic flu timeline
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"My plan," says Skaggs, a solo FP in Lexington, KY, "is to make house calls to patients who catch it. That will keep those
people out of my office and out of contact with the rest of the public."
Skaggs takes predictions of an influenza pandemic seriously, and studies show that most of her colleagues do too. Six out
of 10 physicians think it's either very or somewhat likely that the dreaded avian flu virus will mutate and achieve human-to-human
transmission within the next five years, according to HCD Research. Almost as many believe the virus will reach our shores.
It's a horrific prospect. An outbreak here could infect 30 percent of the population, kill 2 million people, and threaten
critical infrastructures such as power plants, hospitals, and banks by keeping essential workers off the job for weeks at
a time, according to the government's worst-case scenario. 
Power Points
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Federal, state, and local governments are drafting contingency plans. But how does a doctor on Main Street prepare? Busy clinicians
feel lucky if they can spend enough time with their patients and get their insurance claims out the door, much less get ready
for a disaster that may never materialize.
Fortunately, there are things you can do in advance of an influenza pandemic that don't involve panic or Herculean striving.
Just learning how to monitor the threat is a start. And if the avian flu doesn't morph into a human pandemic, your efforts
won't be in vain. As history has shown, some other killer flu like the one in 1918 could be around the corner.
While physicians like Annie Skaggs are ready to suit up for a pandemic, other physicians are watching, waiting, and wary of
what they consider overblown predictions. "Looks like media hype that is pseudo-intellectual," says urologist Dan Witt in
Hoisington, KS.
"This is not 1918," adds orthopedic surgeon Paul Ross in Pawlet, VT. "We have antibiotics at our disposal for secondary bacterial
infections."
Older doctors, of course, remember the false alarms triggered by the Swine Flu episode of 1976. Fearing a pandemic, the Ford
administration rushed to vaccinate the entire country. The program was cancelled in midstream when no pandemic emerged and
those vaccinated were found to have a higher rate of Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
There's also skepticism about the nation's wherewithal to cope with a real pandemic, especially since it's a struggle just
to vaccinate patients against seasonal influenza. Over three months during last year's flu season, 30 percent of physicians
received none of the vaccines they ordered, according to the AMA. Only one in four received more than 80 percent of their
order. The blame for such snafus falls on reduced vaccine production, as well as skewed distribution. Pharmacies and grocery
stores, it's said, have an easier time getting their supplies than doctors do.
Practice Tools
Posted Jul 27 2006 04:32PM
