Leaders of a Pandemic Task Force in Harford County say the county is perhaps better prepared for an eventual outbreak of avian flu than most counties in the state.
“If we have a true pandemic, we?re going to have to deal with it ourselves,” said Doug Richmond, emergency planning manager for Harford County.
Richmond said a bird flu pandemic ? an outbreak that stretches across geographical regions ? would tax every level of government in the state, which might put Harford on its own.
It is for precisely this reason that Harford County Executive David Craig mandated that by September, the county have an emergency response plan in place for an outbreak of bird flu.
What makes Harford?s response to a possible outbreak of bird flu unique is that every agency within the county is working together to develop the plan, something that is not being done in most Maryland jurisdictions, said Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Harford County health officer.
“We?re doing all the planning together as a county,” Bernstein said.
Few if any counties in the state are approaching the matter in such a way, but most have opted to task individual agencies to come up with their own plans from within, he said.
Bernstein said Harford?s bird flu response plan could represent a benchmark for the entire country.
For now, the bird flu, a more deadly variant of the common influenza virus, has seen limited outbreaks, because the virus only thrives in the lower portion of the lungs, thus making its spread negligible.
If, and when the virus “mutates” to be able to occupy the entire lungs ? as the common flu does ? a pandemic could ensue that could put 20 percent to 30 percent of the work force out of commission for days at a stretch, officials said.
