States told to prepare for worst-case swine flu scenario

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told government leaders at a swine flu preparedness summit Thursday that a vaccine to fight the H1N1 virus should be ready for distribution in mid-October.

But Sebelius also advised 500 government, health and education leaders to plan for the worst-case scenario of the virus reappearing with renewed strength this fall.

"What we need to assume is that it will come back in a much more severe form," she said at the conference at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, outside Washington.

Commonly called swine flu, the virus is also known as influenza A(H1N1). The World Health Organization declared the virus a global pandemic last month.

Continued: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/09/obama.swine.flu/index.html