avian influenza strain H5N1 appears in gold
Jonathan Fielding, MD, MPH, Director, Los Angeles County Department of Health Services
a talk about avian flu with Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Director of Public Health, Los Angeles County
Dr. Jonathan Fielding is "Director of Public Health and Health Officer for
Los Angeles County where he is responsible for the full range of public health activities for ten million county residents," according to his biography on the web site of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also serves, as Professor, Health Services and Pediatrics, at the UCLA School of Public Health, Department of Health Services.
Etopia Media Medical News Network spoke this afternoon with Dr. Fielding about the state of preparedness of Los Angeles County for a possible global avian influenza ("bird flu") pandemic.
"We're not going to be able to control avian flu alone"
Asked about the state of preparedness of Los Angeles County for a possible avian influenza ("bird flu") pandemic,
Dr. Fielding told EMMNN:
"We've been working on that issue, it's been very much "top-of-mind" for well over a year and we have a very detailed plan that we've worked out, but, having said that, I think, that like most places that look at this issue, it's really a national and international issue. We're not going to be able to, for example, control avian flu alone.
"What we're focusing on is surveillance, laboratory, issues of quarantine, making sure that when vaccine is available we can get it distributed, the same with anti-viral medication and making sure we do the right kind of job in terms of communication with all the different groups and all languages and trying to make sure we can minimize the extent of this infection should it come there.
"But, having said that, of course nobody is sure we're going to have this problem."
"We have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best"
Asked about the likelihood of an avian flu pandemic coming to Los Angeles in the next two or three years,
Dr. Fielding replied that:
"I don't think any of us know. I think we have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best and so we're assuming it's coming and, of course, it may never come and that would certainly be good."
"We need to shorten the cycle time"
Asked about the need to find and use "newer and faster" ways of developing and producing vaccines,
Dr. Fielding said.
"The way we make vaccine if very antiquated; it's the technology from the 50s and 60s. In the president's announcement last week, he explicitly said that some of the money for vaccine development would go to help accelerate the move towards newer technologies, the cellular and DNA replication approaches, and certainly that's something I support.
"We need to shorten the cycle time."
You can learn more about these "newer and faster" ways of developing and producing vaccines by clicking on the title of the November 7, 2005,
Etopia Media Medical News Network article
"Vical answers questions about DNA vaccines."
Dr. Fielding on quarantine as a tool to prevent the spread of avian influenza in Los Angeles County
You can listen to that conversation with Dr. Fielding in its entirety, and hear what he had to say about using the quarantine process in Los Angeles County against a possible global avian flu pandemic, by clicking
here.
listen to an earlier EMMNN interview with Dr. Fielding
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