Nations to Discuss Potential Flu Pandemic

"But I have to give Secretary Leavitt a lot of credit," Osterholm said. "Someone has to stand up with intellectual and personal honesty and say we have some serious challenges ahead of us."

As part of the process of encouraging other nations to draft preparedness plans -- and to help build the communication channels that would be central to a globally coordinated response -- Leavitt is scheduled to travel to Asia tomorrow. Over 10 days he will meet with top officials in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia, said HHS spokesman Bill Hall.

The goal, Hall said, "is to solidify relationships and express the importance of transparency in surveillance and the sharing of data." Leavitt has previously said he hopes to reach agreements that would provide testing and other medical technologies to nations in need.

That theme of international cooperation ranks high among the topics to be discussed at the meeting today. Many world leaders are less than confident that the governments of some of the most vulnerable nations are willing or even able to tell the world quickly about outbreaks that may emerge within their borders.

With researchers agreeing that the only hope for containing an outbreak is to act very quickly, political trust and candor can be as important as scientific advances.

At a briefing for reporters yesterday at which several senior government officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in deference to comments to be made later that evening by Leavitt, an official from the U.S. Agency for International Development said the agency considers avian flu to be its "number one priority," more important even than relief efforts in Iraq and other regions.

Asked if the United States would be willing to dip into its drug and vaccine reserves to supply a stricken Asian nation, an HHS official answered in the affirmative -- on the condition that the country was prompt and honest in its reporting.

"Without that kind of early cooperation, we will pull back to the next firebreak," the official said, apparently referring to U.S. borders. "We have to protect ourselves."