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President's bird flu plan puts pressure on local government

The president's new plan to prepare for bird flu has put responsibility for dealing with the disease on local governments.

Sarah Smithies has more from the State Capitol on what Missouri is doing.

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In his new $7.1 billion plan for preparing for a bird flu pandemic, President Bush put responsibility on local government. Eddie Hedrick, the Emerging Infections Coordinator for Missouri's health department says the plan reinfoces the old ideas.

"The federal government will probably not be much help once a pandemic hits, and neither will the state governments."

The current state plan for dealing with bird flu involves helping local communities develop their own plans.

Missouri is expected to recieve $1.8 million of the $7.1 billion in the President's plan.

From Jefferson City, I'm Sarah Smithies.

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The president unveiled his plan Wednesday morning for preparing for a bird flu pandemic. The plan puts most of the responsibility on local government. Sarah Smithies has more from the State Capitol on what Missouri is doing to prepare.

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The president's new plan for preparing for bird flu puts pressure on local governments to create plans to deal with bird flu.

Tony Perryman, an Animal Health Inspector for the Missouri Department of Agriculture explains how they've been preparing.

"We have had practices, little scenarios, where we have an outbreak of flu and we've had people from the industry and just the private sector come to these meetings and different areas of the states and we go through what needs to be done in case there is an emergency."

Missouri will receive about $1.8 million of the President's $7.1 billion plan.

Perryman says he expects if the Department of Agriculture recieves any of this it will go toward equipment and personnel for detecting bird flu.

From Jefferson City, I'm Sarah Smithies.