Official: Colorado ready for avian flu

John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 24, 2006 at midnight

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Colorado is better prepared to handle an outbreak of avian flu, thanks to several years of interagency planning, the state's chief medical officer told a group of lawmakers Monday night.

There are provisions in place for testing using a chip developed by researchers at the University of Colorado, said Dr. Ned Calonge, chief medical officer with the Colorado Department of Health.

There are 6,500 extra beds stored to create excess capacity to handle the expected surge of cases, he added.

And the state has protocols in place for the governor to impose a quarantine if needed.

But if there is a pandemic flu on the scale of the one that killed millions worldwide starting in 1918, Calonge said there is no way of knowing if the precautions the state has taken will be enough.

"I don't know how the system will respond to pandemic flu," he told a audience of about 60 physicians and state lawmakers gathered at the University Club for a briefing.

If there were to be a less severe outbreak of avian flu such as occurred in the late 1960s, Calonge said he is confident the systems in place worldwide could handle it.

In either case, Calonge said he is not losing sleep over the prospect.

"I think everyone would agree a pandemic is not imminent," Calonge said after Dr. Michelle Barron, an assistant professor at the Colorado Health Sciences Center, briefed the audience on the history of the disease.

But he added that he does believe birds affected by avian flu will find their way into North America by migration routes along the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska.

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