Wisconsin has updated its pandemic flu plan, focusing on concerns as wide-ranging as protecting the agriculture industry and making sure that enough protective masks are available to prevent the spread of flu among humans.

Looking at a worst-case scenario, the state plan says 1.9 million state residents could become clinically ill, more than 29,000 would need to be hospitalized and 8,800 would die.

"We are just talking about imponderables here," Gov. Jim Doyle said Tuesday at a news conference in Milwaukee.

However, while there is a potential for catastrophe, Doyle said, people should not lose sleep over the issue.

"We are doing everything we can to prepare for an outbreak of bird flu if it should occur," he said.

Doyle noted that since 2004, 19 people who had flu symptoms after returning to Wisconsin from Asia have been tested for avian flu. All were negative.

Wisconsin, which began putting together a pandemic flu plan several years ago, has updated it in recent months because of the emergence of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Asia.

The H5N1 strain has infected a large number of domestic birds in Asia and 130 people, including 67 who have died since 2003.

If there were an outbreak in Wisconsin, part of the state's plan calls for culling domestic birds as a way to prevent the animal outbreak from spreading to people.

In such a scenario, the state plan calls for administering anti- viral drugs to agricultural workers and others who come into contact with infected birds.

Other parts of the state plan include:

-- Using hospital rooms, nursing homes and other facilities to isolate infected people and issuing quarantines, if necessary.

-- Giving hospitals increased capacity to handle patients by reconfiguring rooms and floors.

-- Getting signed agreements from all hospitals to provide assistance to each other.

-- Testing anyone who goes to a hospital with flu symptoms after returning from Southeast Asia.

Doyle also was critical of the federal government for failing to invest in the vaccine industry and for allowing the United States to fall far behind European countries in the stockpiling of anti-viral medications.

"Our (federal) government has to play catch-up now," Doyle said.

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Copyright 2005 Journal Sentinel Inc. Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media
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