Officials want state prepared for flu outbreak

Theaters, dance halls and schools were closed. The opening of Colby College was delayed by 10 days.

These were some of the steps government officials took to try to halt the Spanish flu pandemic that eventually claimed 5,000 Maine lives, said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control.

She and other state officials want to be better prepared if widespread flu hits Maine again.

More than 1,000 health care providers, government officials and others gathered at the Augusta Civic Center on Wednesday for a summit on avian and pandemic influenza. At a similar conference a year ago, 250 crowded into one of the smaller conference rooms at the civic center.

"We are much more prepared," Mills said during a break in the conference. "It's an elusive goal in some ways."

Avian influenza is caused by flu viruses found among birds, and can be transmitted to humans, according to the state CDC. Pandemic flu causes a global outbreak of serious illness and can occur any time of the year.

Gov. John Baldacci kicked off the conference with comments about the need to be prepared for an influenza outbreak and other large-scale emergencies. Mills and Maj. Gen. Bill Libby, head of the Maine Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, then spent about an hour reviewing what happened in 1918.

Mills said her staff spent hours combing through old newspapers and public records to find out how the flu -- which killed more than 50 million worldwide -- spread across Maine.

They found that not only were cities such as Portland, Bath and Brunswick hit hard, but that Aroostook County lost many lives as well. Half of those who died were between the ages of 20 and 40.

Today, public health officials are putting together plans to be ready in the event of another outbreak.

Several staffers from Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington talked about their planning process, which began about year ago. President Richard Batt said he gave key members of his staff six weeks to come up with a plan. It's been revised six times.

"There's an overwhelming consensus among experts that if there's a pandemic, the consequences would be extraordinary," Batt said.

His hospital spent $25,000 to write the plan and $75,000 to stockpile supplies, he said.

Mills said Franklin Memorial is far ahead of most hospitals in Maine, and across the country, in the planning process.

Throughout the day, the summit offered smaller sessions on dozens of topics, including how to care for people with disabilities in a pandemic, how to work with the media during a crisis, and the role of faith-based organizations in response to a pandemic.

Government officials also need to find a way to spread the word to those outside the health care field, Mills said.

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