FINDINGS

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And not a single country has guidelines on how to distribute limited numbers of ventilators and face masks in case of a global epidemic, the survey of 45 national plans showed.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus still mostly infects birds, but it continues to infect the occasional person and has killed 151 people in nine countries.

Lori Uscher-Pines of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, who helped conduct the study, said it is difficult to set priorities when a pandemic is so unpredictable.

To start a pandemic, H5N1 or any other flu virus would have to first acquire the ability to pass easily from person to person.

The teams at Johns Hopkins and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel reviewed 45 national pandemic influenza plans.

Writing in the Public Library of Science's online journal, PLoS Medicine, they said 28 plans listed groups to receive vaccines in a pandemic and 22 prioritized groups to get antiviral medications.

-- From News Services

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