It's February 2005, and the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention has recently singled out avian flu as the single greatest threat to human health - ranking it even above AIDS. In Canada, the federal government has committed $34 million for the development of a prototype vaccine in the hope of staying one step ahead of a possible avian flu pandemic. In this interview from CBC Radio's The Current, the country's chief public health officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones, discusses what's being done to prepare Canadians.

• With anxiety over avian influenza running high, public health agencies the world over have been redoubling their efforts to cope with a possible pandemic.
• Heading of efforts on the home front is the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), a national organization established in the fall of 2004. Headquartered in Winnipeg with an office in Ottawa, the agency acts as a hub for disease surveillance, identification and prevention.
• Boasting a startup budget of $165 million, PHAC is intended to work alongside Health Canada to help co-ordinate an effective national disease prevention strategy.

• The first of its kind, the agency is headed by Dr. David Butler-Jones, a member of the SARS Committee and the former chief medical health officer for Saskatchewan.
• In February 2005, the federal budget announcement included an additional $34 million for PHAC researchers to start developing a prototype vaccine.
• The idea is to produce a new and more effective vaccine that will only require one dose rather than multiple shots.

• Typically, vaccines for pandemic strength flu require two or three shots for immunity to kick in. Weaker, annual strains of epidemic flu viruses require just one shot.
• This new prototype vaccine is being developed using a genetically modified seed that contains the H5N1 virus (aka the avian flu). PHAC, along with drug manufacturers, are currently trying to grow the virus in eggs with the hope of building a "seed bank" for future vaccine production.

• PHAC has also developed a Pandemic Influenza Plan – a 431-page document that maps out the government's action plan in the event of a global outbreak of the flu.
• The plan details what is being done across Canada, including the North, and how the country's various public health agencies would respond. These responses include shutting down international travel and recruiting retired doctors and nurses to replace their infected colleagues.

• PHAC is not the first federal agency created in response to a disease threat. The Department of Health was created in 1919, in the wake of the Spanish influenza pandemic.
• According to PHAC, more Canadians per capita receive the flu shot than in any other country. In 2005, Canada boasted 10.9 million doses of the latest flu vaccine for publicly funded programs across the country.

• While the threat of avian flu has grabbed many headlines, there are many who believe it's receiving more hype than it deserves. Critics point to the fact that since the WHO started keeping records in January 2004, there have only been 133 confirmed human cases of H5N1 avian flu and only 68 deaths (as of Dec 2005).
• To hear more about more about this, go to our additional clip Sensationalism v. Science.

Medium: Radio
Program: The Current
Broadcast Date: Feb. 4, 2005
Host: Anna Maria Tremonti
Guest(s): David Butler-Jones
Duration: 8:55