Unspent funds issue raised as flu spreads

While evidence mounted Thursday that the swine flu virus has spread to the nation’s capital and touched the Obama administration, a House member charged the Health and Human Services Department with sitting on $1.3 billion in unspent anti-pandemic funding.

An advance man for President Obama’s trip to Mexico and a World Bank employee in the District have been tested and are suspected of having been infected with swine flu.

Rep. Kay Granger, Texas Republican, said in a letter this week to new HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that she is “very concerned, however, by reports that the Department of Health and Human Services has approximately $1.3 billion in unspent funds for the implementation of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza (NSPI).”

“I am particularly concerned that this large unobligated balance remains after I wrote to and spoke with [then-HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt] back in 2007 about the importance of acting expeditiously” to stock up on existing anti-viral flu medications and develop new ones.

Also Thursday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. went far beyond official word on travel safety, saying he would advise his family not to “go anywhere in confined places now,” prompting several officials during the day to backtrack the gaffe-prone vice president’s words.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs did not identify the advance man, who works for Energy Secretary Steven Chu and traveled to Mexico City on April 13. But he said that he has tested positive for Type-A influenza and possibly infected members of his family who live in Anne Arundel County, Md.

Mr. Chu has not experienced any symptoms, so he has not been tested. “The same is true of the president,” Mr. Gibbs said.

“He was asked if he ever came within 6 feet of the president and he said ‘No,’” Mr. Gibbs said. “He was not close enough to the president.”

Separately, Maryland and Virginia health officials each said they had two more probable cases of swine flu in their respective states, bringing the region’s total to 10.

Mrs. Granger’s letter was sent Tuesday, the same day that the White House said Mr. Obama would request $1.5 billion in emergency funding to combat the spread of swine flu, which has killed at least 150 people in Mexico and one person in the U.S. and which the World Health Organization (WHO) says is an imminent risk of becoming a global pandemic.

“Given that your Department has $1.3 billion in unobligated funds for pandemic preparedness, I am concerned that any additional funding Congress may provide through a supplemental appropriations bill or other means will remain unspent,” wrote Mrs. Granger, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

An HHS spokesman did not return a call for comment.

In a statement, Ms. Granger praised Mrs. Sebelius for ordering 12 million courses of anti-virals to replenish the national stockpile, and again reminded her that the $1.3 billion in unspent funds should be used to purchase additional anti-virals to treat patients until a vaccine is available.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday said official testing shows 109 cases of H1N1 virus, or swine flu, in 11 states in the U.S. with one fatality, a 2-year-old Mexican boy. State officials across the nation report 19 more confirmed cases and scores of suspected illnesses.

Mexican health officials have blamed 168 deaths and 2,955 illnesses on the swine flu, with national reporting agencies claiming 34 cases in Canada; 13 in Spain; eight in Britain; three each in Germany and New Zealand; two in Israel; and one each in Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands.

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