State Prepares For Flu Pandemic It Hopes Will Never Happen

Saturday, December 16th 2006, 2:06 pm

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ One flu shot at a time, Oklahoma health care officials are preparing for a calamity they hope never happens -- a flu pandemic that could sicken and kill thousands.

Huge stockpiles of antiviral drugs like Tamiflu and Relenza are being amassed at secret locations within the state and at a strategic national stockpile. They'll treat Oklahomans infected by the Asian bird flu or some other super-strain of influenza.

More than 22,000 doses of the flu vaccine have been administered through a series of exercises across the state in which up to one-thousand people received the vaccine in a single hour

Doctor Mike Crutcher, Oklahoma's health commissioner, says the challenge is preparing for a pandemic is to diminish human death and suffering.