Who Gets Vaccine During Flu Pandemic Outbreak?

If the bird flu, aka avian influenza, or another pandemic flu virus strikes, the first people to receive a vaccine will be the military, medical and emergency workers, pregnant women and babies, according to a new federal plan outlined by USA Today.

Those 23 million people will be the first protected if vaccine supplies are short. The last to be protected will be the 74 million sick and elderly adults, and 122 million healthy adults, according to USA Today.

In 1918, a flu pandemic killed 20 million Americans. Experts have been watching avian influenza -- a particularly deadly form of the flu -- for years, hoping that it won't mutate so that it can be passed from human to human (instead of from bird to human, as it is now.)

The plan is an unprecedented accounting of what the government thinks it needs to keep American society functioning. Certain professions are given precedence -- electricity, natural gas, communications and water engineers, for instance, with bankers, the food and farm sector, postal and chemical workers following in a second tier.

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