By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

Health and emergency officials will hone their plans next week for a looming avian flu pandemic.

Health and emergency officials from towns and counties around the state will meet Wednesday at the Augusta Civic Center to discuss the latest news about the avian flu and talk about what they need.

“We’re most interested in getting their feedback,” said Paul Kuehnert, deputy director for the Maine Center for Disease Control. “There’s been a lot of talk about the flu and the national and international response, but now we need to get the local planning effort under way.”

World health officials are watching Southeast Asia, where the first people have been infected with the H5N1 virus by contact with birds. No cases have been reported in the United States.

Health officials don’t consider the flu a pandemic threat unless it spreads from person to person. That has not happened yet, but health officials around the world are watching hospitals closely.

“It is really hard to predict patterns, but the models we’ve looked at show the world reaching pandemic levels within six weeks of the first human-to-human cases in Singapore,” Kuehnert said.

Scientists are limited in what they can do until those first strains of human-to-human flu virus are identified. Once they have that, doctors can begin making vaccines and treatments.

Local efforts will focus on delaying the spread of the disease until the vaccine is ready.

The state issued a pandemic response plan in October that calls for canceling public meetings, closing public buildings such as libraries, halting public transportation and closing most schools and businesses.

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