WASHINGTON -- President Bush, increasingly worried about an avian flu pandemic, revealed Tuesday that any part of the country where the virus breaks out could be quarantined and that he is considering using the military to enforce it.

"The best way to deal with a pandemic is to isolate it and keep it isolated in the region in which it begins," he said during a Rose Garden news conference.

Bush made clear that the potential for an outbreak of avian flu is much on his mind.

He said he had talked with "as many [world] leaders as I could find," consulting a book he read over the summer on the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed 40 million, and meeting with staff and experts.

"I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean," he said.

He acknowledged that a quarantine -- an idea sure to alarm many - - is no small thing for the government to undertake and that enforcing it would be tricky.

"It's one thing to shut down airplanes," Bush said. "It's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu."

He urged Congress to give him the ability to use the military, if needed.

"I think the president ought to have all . . . assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant," he said.

AP

AVIAN FLU

*HOW DO YOU CATCH IT? Most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds, who shed the virus in their saliva, nasal secretions and feces. The virus is likely to mutate into a form that spreads from human to human.

*WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS? In a 1997 Hong Kong outbreak, patients had fevers, sore throats and were coughing -- typical symptoms of the ordinary flu.

*WHERE IS THE FLU NOW? The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in large swaths of Asia since 2003, infecting humans and killing at least 65 people.

*WHEN IS IT COMING HERE? Experts agree that the virus will start spreading from human to human and become a global epidemic. However, it is unknown when that would be.

*HOW MANY COULD DIE? Estimates vary wildly. Up to 360 million deaths have been predicted in an epidemic. A World Health Organization spokesman said 7.4 million is more realistic.

*WHAT'S BEING DONE ABOUT IT? The Senate voted last week to provide $4 billion to stockpile anti-flu medicine and prepare for a potential outbreak.

SOURCES: AP, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization

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