'No One' Ready For Bird Flu

(CBS/AP)  The Bush administration's top health official told CBS News' The Early Show Thursday that "no one in the world is ready" for a potentially catastrophic outbreak of bird flu as President Bush summoned vaccine manufacturers to the White House to discuss the situation.

"We have to confront this," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt

told Harry Smith (video).

Because there have been three pandemics in the past century, Leavitt said he has no doubt "there will be a pandemic at some point."

Leavitt also said that U.S. officials and their counterparts around the globe recognize the deadly possibilities of an avian flu outbreak and are working hard on ways to protect people from it.

"The good news is, we do have a vaccine," Leavitt said. But he cautioned that officials do not currently have an ability to mass produce it or get it to people quickly.

Also Thursday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday that the U.N. will not let intellectual property rights stand in the way of access to flu treatments and vaccines in case of a pandemic.

"We should be clear in this situation: We will take the measures to make sure poor and rich have access to the medications and the vaccines required," Annan said, calling on rich nations and pharmaceutical companies to help impoverished countries prepare themselves.

Annan said he will be "encouraging pharmaceutical companies and others to be helpful and making sure we do not allow intellectual property rights to get in the way of access of the poor to medication."

Patents allow the developer of a drug an exclusive right to make and sell the drug for several years. But under some circumstances, countries are allowed to create generic versions of patented drugs with impunity if the medicine is considered essential, according to an agreement reached by the World Trade Organization.

Annan made the comments after meeting with the global body's top health officials to discuss the present situation of the bird flu virus, which has affected parts of Asia.

But while the concern is pressing, it is not immediate in the United States, Leavitt said.

"It has infected about 140 million birds around the world, but it's a very inefficient virus currently in terms of people," Leavitt said. "The problem is that sometimes (viruses) are constantly mutating and occasionally they'll mutate into a form that will be rapidly transferable between people."

More than 65 countries and international organizations are participating in talks today at the State Department about flu preparations.

Mr. Bush was meeting with top advisers Thursday on the matter and will meet on Friday with representatives from U.S. companies and some foreign vaccine manufacturers, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

"We want to press ahead to expand our manufacturing capacity to address this risk," McClellan said.

Outlining the pandemic plan in an interview Wednesday with the AP, Leavitt said U.S. health officials would rush overseas to wherever a bird flu outbreak occurred and work with local officials to try to contain it.

"If you can get there fast enough and apply good public health techniques of isolating and quarantining and medicating and vaccinating the people in that area, you can ... squelch it or you can delay it," Leavitt said.

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