You hear the term cull in almost all news reports concerning new outbreaks of the bird flu. For instance, in Malaysia a new outbreak was discovered in a village near Kuala Lumpur. In response to this the country has taken bold action. 

Kamaruddin Mohamed Isa, who heads the disease control, said:

When we sent our boys, we found bird flu in two village chickens but people said 60 chickens had died earlier.

We will cull all chickens and impose a 10 km (6-mile) quarantine area and the police will put a road block around this area.

As we mentioned in the last post, the Contra Costa county health department has put together a kit of forms and information to help prepare for the flu pandemic.

Before we start reviewing the kit let's look at the disclaimer they have on their site:

Pandemic flu is a particular kind of flu that causes a global outbreak, or pandemic, of serious illness that spreads easily from person to person. While most people have some immunity to various strains of seasonal flu, flu viruses are constantly changing and producing new strains. When a virus emerges that is so different from previous strains that few, if any, people have any immunity to it, the impact is more severe and widespread than with seasonal flu. There is no flu pandemic at this time.

Contra Costa County California's health department is now issuing flu pandemic preparedness kits for schools. Think about that for a second. There have been no pandemic or bird flu cases reported in the United Sates. No reports in neighboring countries. No reports on the continent. Yet there is still a health department raising the specter of a global pandemic. 

The flu pandemic preparedness kits contain the following :