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(AP) - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
predicted Tuesday that swine flu will crop up in additional states
in the days ahead, although the Obama administration said it has no
immediate plans for more stringent measures to prevent a wider
spread of the disease from Mexico.


      Authorities have confirmed about 50 cases of the illness in the
United States so far, and the administration has begun moving
stockpiles of antiviral drugs into the affected areas.


      No flu-related deaths have been reported in the U.S., while
neighboring Mexico has experienced more than 150 flu-related
fatalities.


      As the administration marshaled its forces, a spokesman at the
Office of Management and Budget said there were no current plans to
seek additional funds to deal with the possibility of a wider
public health threat. 


One senior Democrat, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, has
said he wants to add an undisclosed amount of flu money to
President Barack Obama's request for funds for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan.


      "Whether or not this influenza strain turns out to have
pandemic potential, sooner or later, some strain will," said Obey,
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.


      Democrats dropped efforts to include anti-pandemic funding in
last winter's economic stimulus bill as they maneuvered for key
votes in the Senate.


      Napolitano, interviewed on NBC, said officials "anticipate
confirmed cases in more states." She reiterated Obama's statement
that the spread of the disease is a cause for concern but not
alarm.


      She offered no estimate of how widely the flu might spread, nor
how many cases might eventually occur.


      Authorities have reported 51 confirmed cases of swine flu in the
United States: 28 at a private high school in New York City, 13 in
California, six in Texas, two in Kansas, one in Ohio and one in
Indiana.


      Health officials in Michigan said they have one suspected case,
and five are suspected in New Jersey.


      Asked about stricter measures, Napolitano said, "That's
something that always can be considered, but you have to look at
what the costs of that are. We literally have thousands of trucks
and lots of commerce that cross that border. We have food products
and other things that have to go across that border."

She added that closing the border would provide little to no protection in terms of preventing the spread of the virus. 


    Some Asian countries have deployed thermal sensors at airports
to screen passengers from North America for signs of fever.


      At the same time, Napolitano said the administration wouldn't
wait for a World Health Organization declaration of a pandemic to
deliver a pandemic-like response.


      Noting that the international health body has elevated its alert
status to Level 4 of a 6-step process, Napolitano said: "We're
prepared as if there were a pandemic. We're not waiting."


      Obama on Monday responded to the first domestic emergency of his
presidency by urging calm -- and then dispatching officials to the
cameras to again back up that message.


      Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said his agency was aggressively
investigating, looking for evidence of the disease spreading and
probing for ways to control and prevent it.


      The government also issued an advisory warning travelers to
cancel any nonessential visits to Mexico -- and gently took issue
with a European Union health official who said the same thing about
travel to parts of the U.S.


      At the White House, a swine flu update, delivered by White House
homeland security adviser John Brennan, was added to the
president's daily intelligence briefing. And on Capitol Hill,
several panels scheduled emergency hearings for this week.


      On Tuesday, Napolitano said that federal efforts to get
antiviral medications to the states "is under way and is
working."


      The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, issued emergency
guidance late Monday that allows certain antiviral drugs to be used
in a broader range of the population in case mass dosing is needed
to deal with a widespread swine flu outbreak.

      The agency originally approved the use of the antiviral drug
Tamiflu for the prevention and treatment of influenza in adults and
children age 1 and older. Another antiviral drug, Relenza, was
originally approved to treat people 7 and older and to help prevent
flu in those 5 and older.


      Napolitano was asked point-blank in one interview if the
monitoring that the U.S. is now conducting at entry points in the
country is sufficient. 

"We think that what we're doing now at the
land ports and the airports makes sense," she replied.


      Napolitano also said "absolutely yes" when asked if the
Department of Health and Human Services, for which Kathleen
Sebelius was still awaiting Senate confirmation, was ready to take
on this kind of heavy challenge.


      The Senate was debating the Kansas Democrat's nomination
Tuesday, and a vote was scheduled later in the day.

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