Preparing For the Worst

Despite not knowing much about bird flu at the start, Nancy Powell led a U.S. initiative to establish a worldwide protocol for response to the virus.

Nancy Powell didn't know much about avian influenza beyond what she'd read in newspapers. During her nearly 30 years at the State Department, Powell had focused on Africa and South Asia and served as ambassador to Uganda, Ghana and Pakistan. But when President Bush announced last year that the State Department would lead the United States in creating an international partnership to combat the virus and prepare for a possible pandemic, Undersecretary for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky asked Powell to direct the initiative.

Powell dove into her new role as senior coordinator for avian influenza and infectious diseases. "She's someone who learns her subject very, very well," Dobriansky says. In just four months, Powell coordinated the expertise that was scattered across federal agencies and established an interagency task force at the State Department. She worked with the United Nations' coordinator for avian influenza and the World Health Organization to develop a preliminary global containment strategy. She oversaw the international sections of the national strategy for bird flu, which outlines the concrete steps people must take to avoid being caught unprepared. She played a key role in securing $1.9 billion in pledges to help affected countries improve surveillance and develop response plans.

By achieving so much in such a short span, Powell exceeded even Dobriansky's expectations. What kept her going was the urgency of the task. "In about a three-week span, we had outbreaks in 10 countries," Powell says. "That spurred us on, and we had to move much more quickly." Health issues such as HIV/AIDS and avian flu are relatively new terrain for State. Yet helping other nations prepare for a pandemic isn't merely a humanitarian mission-it's also critical to national security. Viruses, after all, don't recognize human-made national borders, and neither do the migratory birds that carry them.

Just over a month into the assignment, Turkey confirmed its first two human cases of avian flu. Ten more cases quickly followed. Powell helped coordinate the international team that assisted the Turkish government in its response. She also sent experts to consult with neighboring countries to emphasize the importance of preparing for bird flu and to provide expertise on designing a response strategy. "Most of them had not done any real planning on avian influenza," Powell says. "This outbreak was a shock to their system."

That same month, Powell led the delegation to the International Pledging Conference on Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza in Beijing, where she announced that the United States would commit $334 million for the global campaign against bird flu. The challenge was to encourage other countries to make the initiative a priority and to remain open to more effective methods of response. That's where Powell's skill as a negotiator proved critical. "She represented the United States very well in articulating what we were doing," Dobriansky says.

After completing her work on bird flu in March, Powell moved on to fighting another international threat: terrorism. As the first national intelligence officer for South Asia, she has brought the same tenacity and determination to leading the National Intelligence Council's expanded coverage of the region.