Avian flu threat pushing U.S. toward vaccine development.

Byline: Marian Uhlman

If anything good emerges from the grim prospect of an avian-flu pandemic, this could be it: U.S. officials are considering pouring billions into vaccine development against the deadly H5N1 virus.

Such a bold move could accelerate vaccine research and retrofit plants to boost production. Government thus would step forcefully into industry's traditional domain and bolster efforts to minimize sickness and death from a pandemic.

And the money couldn't flow too soon.

As things stand now, the nation is ill prepared to cope with a pandemic. With current resources, the best defense _ vaccines _ would, if available at all, cover only a fraction of the population.

"The bottom line is that there is a huge capacity gap," said Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Policy Office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "We are going to have to fill it."

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