WEDNESDAY, Aug. 3 (HealthDay News) — Two articles in leading scientific journals outline plans for combating the possible pandemic of avian flu that is an ever-present fear among scientific experts.

The first article, appearing in the Aug. 4 issue of Nature, concluded that up to 3 million courses of anti-viral drugs, as well as a policy of quarantining people who are at risk, could do the trick in Southeast Asia, the epicenter of bird flu activity.

The second article, appearing in the Aug. 5 issue of Science, found that a multi-pronged strategy including anti-viral drugs, vaccines and quarantine, would be effective in containing an outbreak.

“We can’t just wait until something happens. We need planning in advance,” said Neil Ferguson, lead author of the Nature study and a professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London. “Nobody’s going to say it’s guaranteed to work but the benefits are so huge. It’s almost certainly worth a try because we have nothing else.”

Articles like these can provide a basis for planning important aspects of an anticipated medical response to a bird flu outbreak, experts said.

“Even if you know everything about the virus and have your stockpile in place, you cannot respond if you do not have the public health infrastructure, the physical infrastructure and the people,” said Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, chairwoman of environmental health sciences at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, in New Orleans.

Awareness and willingness are already in place, she said, and the SARS epidemic went a long way toward solidifying international collaboration against a dangerous infectious disease.

“The companies big issue is whether the political willingness is robust enough to be able to put in place the infrastructure in advance of a potential pandemic, without the sword hanging over your neck,” Lichtveld said.

The specter of a worldwide avian flu pandemic has loomed for years. This year, bird flu is widespread in Southeast Asia’s poultry stocks and has infected a number of humans, with alarmingly high death rates. It has killed at least 51 people in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia over the past two years, according to published reports.

If the virus mutates and acquires the ability to jump easily from human to human, experts fear a deadly pandemic similar to the one that killed about 50 million people worldwide in 1918-1919.

According to the Nature article, “The continuing spread of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in wild and domestic poultry in Southeast Asia represents the most serious human pandemic influenza risk for decades.”

The best hope, the authors stated, would be to stop an outbreak in its infancy.

The study researchers used computer modeling to simulate a scenario of flu transmission in Southeast Asia and then to evaluate the potential effectiveness of anti-flu drugs and a strategy of containment.

It seo services might be possible to halt a pandemic at its start by using a combination of “social distancing” measures to reduce contact between people and prophylactic administration of anti-flu drugs such as oseltamivir or Tamiflu, the study said.

Much depends on how quickly cases are diagnosed, how quickly drugs are distributed and how quickly the virus spreads, the researchers said.

The model calculated that a containment policy would need to begin when the outbreak had affected no more than 40 people, with isolation and treatment of each new case taking place within two days.

“If there was enough planning, preparedness and commitment from the countries in the region, this strategy is probably feasible in practice,” Ferguson said.

“It’s worth a try but it is difficult. We clearly need a sizable anti-viral stockpile which can be deployed