Bird Flu Center

The difficulty in producing an efficient vaccine is the continuous change in the virus’ structure. The strains affecting the population now will be considerably different from the ones causing infections several months later. And most experts agree that developing a vaccine for a newly found strain of avian influenza can take up to 6 months.

With estimates saying 40% of children and 20% of working adults will contract bird flu, authorities are storing antiviral medicines, in an attempt to treat a greater percentage of the population in the case of a bird flu pandemic. The vaccine shall be distributed to people following an order of priority, in several tiers, with the First Group being given the highest priority in each of them. This list is provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services and it does not include the 1.5 million military personnel essential in ongoing operations and military medicine.

Tier 1 - First Group:

• roughly 40,000 people involved in vaccine manufacturing
• medical personnel in direct patient contact

Tier 1 - Second Group:

• people suffering from two medical conditions, that put them at a higher risk of flu complications
• people with a past record of flu hospitalization

Tier 1 - Third Group:

• pregnant women
• close contacts of people with immune-system deficiencies (e.g. AIDS or transplants) that prevent a vaccination to them

Tier 1 - Fourth Group:

• emergency services workers whose task is critical to pandemic response
• high ranking government officials

Tier 2 - First Group:

• healthy people over the age of 65
• people aged 6 months to 64 years suffering from one medical condition that puts them at higher risk from flu and flu-related complications
• healthy children 6 to 23 months old

Tier 2 - Second Group:

• emergency service workers not critical to pandemic response
• public safety workers (firefighters, police, 911 dispatchers, correctional facility staff)
• utility services personnel needed for maintaining power and water supplies, as well as sewage systems
• transport system workers who transport fuel, water, food, medical supplies
• public ground transportation personnel
• telecommunications and internet personnel which operate and maintain network equipments

Tier 3:

• other important government health decision-makers
• funeral directors and embalmers

Tier 4:

• healthy people 2 to 64 years old who are not included in any of the categories above