Many states lack drugs to treat swine flu,10M doses short
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More than two dozen states, including Maryland, as well as the District, have not stocked enough of the emergency supplies of antiviral medications considered necessary to treat victims of swine flu should the outbreak become a full-blown crisis, according to federal records.
The medications are part of a national effort to be prepared for a pandemic, and the stockpiling program is being tested for the first time by the rapid spread of the H1N1 strain of the influenza virus. If a health crisis wiped out drug supplies in pharmacies and hospitals, or if families were unable to get to their doctors, local and state officials could quickly distribute stockpiled medications.
The Strategic National Stockpile, created during the Clinton administration a decade ago to provide a federally coordinated response to disasters, maintains a massive collection of antibiotics, vaccines, gas masks and other supplies in a dozen secret locations. The program was expanded in 2004 to include drugs needed in a pandemic and is designed to link with stockpiles kept by state governments, pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies. But the District, Maryland and 26 other states are 10 million dosages short of the levels that the federal government has determined they should have in their stockpiles for a pandemic. The drugs -- in this case, Tamiflu and Relenza -- would be used to treat the illness, not to prevent it.
The medications are part of a national effort to be prepared for a pandemic, and the stockpiling program is being tested for the first time by the rapid spread of the H1N1 strain of the influenza virus. If a health crisis wiped out drug supplies in pharmacies and hospitals, or if families were unable to get to their doctors, local and state officials could quickly distribute stockpiled medications.
The Strategic National Stockpile, created during the Clinton administration a decade ago to provide a federally coordinated response to disasters, maintains a massive collection of antibiotics, vaccines, gas masks and other supplies in a dozen secret locations. The program was expanded in 2004 to include drugs needed in a pandemic and is designed to link with stockpiles kept by state governments, pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies. But the District, Maryland and 26 other states are 10 million dosages short of the levels that the federal government has determined they should have in their stockpiles for a pandemic. The drugs -- in this case, Tamiflu and Relenza -- would be used to treat the illness, not to prevent it.
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