HANG ON TO THAT TAMIFLU:

President Bush signed an executive order yesterday authorizing the government to impose a quarantine to deal with any outbreak of a particularly lethal variation of influenza now found in Southeast Asia.

The order is intended to deal with a type of influenza commonly referred to as bird flu. Since January 2004, an estimated 69 persons, primarily in Vietnam, have contracted the disease. But Dr. Keiji Fukuda, a flu expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said he suspects there are more cases.

I hope we’ll dodge this bullet, but most experts seem to think it’s just a matter of when, not if, this strain of flu makes the jump to general human transmission.

UPDATE: It’s not directly related, but Angola’s outbreak of the Marburg virus (which inspired The Andromeda Strain) has now set a record for the number of fatalities.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A report on the progress of a bird flu vaccine, here, and more on Tamiflu and the avian flu here.