WHO says, "Engineers Needed to Stop Avian Flu"

Technology is the key ingredient, but not the only part of the story. Businesses may need low-cost loans or even partial funding for equipment purchases. I wouldn't want to see this turn into a government give-away, but turning ideas into action takes money.

Also needing attention is how can 6.5B doses be administered. To have 6.5B doses administered within 30 days, one would need doses given at the rate of 9.03 Million doses per hour, 24 hours a day. Stretch that to 6 months and the rate becomes roughly 1.5 Million doses per hour, 24 hours a day.

During the "Swine Flu Epidemic" of 1976, President Gerald Ford ordered that the entire US military population be vaccinated. As a new Air Force medic, just out of 6 weeks of "Level 3" (basic technical school) training, I and around a dozen other techs administered several thousand hypodermic "shots" to base personnel in only a few days. That included having to prepare each disposable syringe by tipping it with a needle and drawing the required dose from a tiny bottle. With today's technology using prefilled autoinjectors it would be even easier. We had a nice production line any engineer (like myself) would be proud of. Instead of requiring all personnel to report to the hospital or clinic, we used an Air Force "Ambus", basically a converted school bus with double-wide doors and a ramp in back (for carrying stretchers up into the bus), which we drove to different locations each day. We set up our gear on a couple of stretchers as makeshift tables and took turns "filling" and "stabbing", giving instructions to the patients to roll up their sleeves and turn their arm towards us, which we swabbed with an alcohol wipe, then injected the serum. Usually they flinched from the wipe, and did not notice the tiny needle! They then proceeded to the front of the bus where an admin tech sat in the driver's seat, logged them in, stamped their shot records, and let them out the front door.

Anyway, the point is, if done properly, good public health workers can administer the injections quickly and easily. Now if we rely on on our private system here in the US to administer the program, then yes, there could be a logjam. Most, but not all, other countries have no such problem and have plenty of public health workers available. China in particular, while not a good model for freedom or social justice, should have no problem inocculating their 1 Billion or so people. They have a long established public medical system that serves their needs extremely well.

My $.02 worth!