Last year, the state of Colorado decided not to buy an allotment of 477,000 courses of antiviral flu medication recommended by the federal government. The decision could be a pivotal one if the swine flu outbreak blows up into a pandemic.
Until this week, it seemed like a fiscally prudent move. Why pay $7 million for medications that might not work against unknown future outbreaks and could expire before needed? But as worldwide swine flu cases and worry about a potential pandemic mount, the state’s decision seems riskier.
However, let’s be clear: We’re far from a pandemic now.
As of Tuesday afternoon, no cases had been confirmed in Colorado. Furthermore, Colorado is in line to get some 167,000 antiviral doses — our share of the federal stockpile — which should arrive by the end of the week. Ned Calonge, the state’s chief medical officer, said private health care groups in Colorado also have another 25,000 doses.
But it’s also clear that this thing is moving fast. Hundreds of school children are thought to be infected in New York, and there were reports of two potential swine flu deaths in California as well as others internationally.
Swine flu is a strain of influenza that can worsen underlying chronic conditions in vulnerable populations. It can sicken and kill healthy people as well.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began, in 2006, stockpiling courses of antiviral drugs that could be dispatched in the event of a pandemic.
HHS had purchased enough antivirals to cover 44 million Americans in the event of a pandemic, according to a memorandum from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment written in February 2008. The part of that national stockpile to be available to Colorado was nearly 678,000 doses.
However, HHS recommended Colorado buy another 477,000 doses, which would cost $7 million. The idea was to involve the states in covering 25 percent of the population.
In healthy times, the difference between doses allotted to a state and those purchased by a state seem minimal since in either case they’re sitting on a shelf somewhere. But as the public health situation changes, the only way Colorado is guaranteed access to antiviral doses is by having bought them.
The Colorado health department, as well as others in the Colorado medical community, recommended against the purchase for several reasons, including cost. The department would instead focus on other means of preparedness — planning with local public health agencies, education, and mass vaccination techniques — should a vaccination become available.
We hope this potential epidemic will sputter and die as others have in the past. If it doesn’t, officials will no doubt be blamed for lack of foresight. We just hope those inclined to throw stones first demonstrate that they were critics of the state’s decision back when it counted.
