AUGUSTA (AP) – Maine health officials are looking back to events 88 years ago as they complete their response plans for a possible pandemic, the director of the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.

Dr. Dora Anne Mills said researchers gathered hundreds of pages of published reports and records from Maine’s last major flu outbreak, which killed about 5,000 people out of a state population of roughly 800,000. She said the parallels between 1918 and now in preparations and responses were striking.

“A lot of the process they employed is the same as we employed today,” Mills said at a news conference at the Augusta Civic Center, where 1,100 health experts, business leaders, educators and people from all levels of government gathered for a state summit on pandemic influenza and avian flu.

During the 1918 pandemic, plans called for stricken people to be housed in hotels after hospitals were filled up. Similar preparations are being looked at today, Mills said.

The governor at the time, Carl Milliken, also convened a group of state agencies to work cooperatively on a response, as has been done this time. As Gov. John Baldacci opened Wednesday’s summit, he said his administration is striving to ensure the state can be as prepared as possible for a new outbreak.

The look into the past also highlights lessons learned, such as how and where quarantines should be imposed. Mills also noted that many of the official statements during the last outbreak were overly optimistic in an apparent effort not to further demoralize a public that was already deeply concerned about World War I.

Mills, appearing with Maj. Gen. John Libby, Maine’s adjutant general, and Jay Bradshaw, the state director of emergency medical services, outlined state preparations so far.

The state, counties and hospitals are working on pandemic response plans. The state and counties have all completed draft plans while hospitals have just begun working on theirs. Mills said the goal is for all to have finalized plans in 2007.

Libby, commissioner of the state Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, said he is less concerned about a final plan than he is about the process of preparing it. It is the process, he said, which brings together leaders and experts who would be critical in carrying out a response.

Wild bird flocks in Maine are being monitored for telltale signs of avian flu. One strain of bird flu, the H5N1 virus, is present in much of Asia and has recently spread to birds in Europe.

The bird flu virus has not been found in Maine, but experts say it could reach North American birds by the end of the year.

The spread of bird flu from person to person has been extremely limited, state health officials say. But because flu viruses have the ability to change, scientists are concerned that a flu strain could eventually not only infect humans but also spread easily from person to person.

“Nobody knows whether it’s going to explode into a pandemic or not,” said Mills, noting that experts’ predictions worldwide range from a 5 percent to 50 percent likelihood. But pandemics do occur “and we’re due,” said Mills.

“We’re a lot more ready than we used to be,” she said.

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On the Net:

Avian and pandemic flu summit: http://www.maine.gov/dhhs/boh

Influenza: www.maineflu.gov

AP-ES-09-20-06 1456EDT