Bird Flu Movie: Plausible or Impossible?

May 9, 2006 — -- How seriously should viewers take "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America," a new television movie airing tonight? Government health officials offer some advice, emphasizing that there is currently no flu pandemic anywhere in the world, and that the next such influenza outbreak could be far less severe than the one depicted in the movie.

The guidelines also address issues such as whether surgical masks would protect people from the virus, and whether shaking hands and sharing drinks would spread the virus.

The HHS guide is available here. Watch "Nightline" tonight at 11:35 p.m. ET to learn more about how the movie compares with the facts about bird flu.

"Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America" dramatizes what could become a terrifying reality if bird flu comes to America and becomes transmissible from human to human.

In the movie, the fictional Secretary of Health Collin Reed asks: "He's only got vaccine for 20 percent of the population. The question then becomes who gets it? The people with the most money, the most power or the most need?"

Viewers also see U.S. hospital beds fill up; emergency rooms turn chaotic; and supermarket customers in surgical masks fighting over dwindling supplies.

The movie also offers lessons about how to prepare for a bird flu pandemic.

People should have a couple of months' worth of nonperishable food, and a first aid kit with the medications you might need -- insulin, for example. Parents need to decide what they would do if children need to stay home.

In real life, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said a vaccine can be manufactured to protect humans, but a bird flu pandemic right now would likely spread far faster than any supply of vaccine.

"We don't have the capacity right now as a nation to provide the 300 million courses necessary to give every man, woman and child a course of the vaccine," Leavitt said. "We are working feverishly to assure that can be done. In three to five years, we will have the capacity to do so."

Leavitt has been holding meetings in the 50 states and territories to convince businesses, educators and individuals to prepare for a pandemic that could throw 40 percent of the work force out of action for weeks on end.

Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Calvin Johnson and state Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced the launch of their Web site, www.pandemicflu.state.pa.us, to coincide with the TV film.

When asked if the bird flu threat kept him up at night, Leavitt said: "I worry a lot about it. There are a lot of things in life to worryabout. This is one of them."