By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – St. Louis area health officials met Wednesday with civic leaders and emergency responders to plan for a possible flu outbreak.
In the past several months health officials have discussed the issue with people in a variety of fields, including medicine, business and education.
Dr. Mike Williams with the St. Louis County Health Department says if a deadly strain of flu strikes, different institutions will have to manage different priorities.
"Health departments worry about doing things to reduce the overall number of illnesses," Williams said. "Businesses and other entities, their job is to harden up, to make themselves more resilient in an environment where there are a lot of flu cases."
Williams says the county health department has a flu plan in place.
He says a major challenge is coordinating response efforts with the area's many municipalities and other governments.
Public health officials are concerned that a deadly strain of flu carried by birds could mutate into a form easily transmitted by humans.