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The federal authorities are preparing to face a possible avian flu pandemic in the United States by contemplating a worst-case scenario, under which more than 92 million people will become ill in the space of four months, US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said.

The projections are based on the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that killed about 50 million people around the world and emerged as the most serious pandemic of the 20th century.

"Because we want the assumptions to tease out and exercise the most severe case, the assumptions we are building on are primarily focused on the 1918 pandemic," the secretary told a meeting of officials from the 50 states and local governments, which focused on pandemic preparedness planning.

"The H5N1 virus we are concerned about currently resembles the triggering virus in 1918," he continued. "I will begin to use those planing assumptions in the development of models that will help us and you make decisions."

According to mathematical projections used by Washington, everything begins with an epidemic that breaks out in Thailand in a small village, where the H5N1 virus has hypothetically mutated and acquired the ability to transmit among humans.

This has not yet occurred. So far the virus has been jumping from birds to humans, but scientists believe it is just a matter of time before it learns how to move from human to human.

Bird flu has affected 130 people in Asia, with 69 of those cases being fatal.

Under the same catastrophic scenario, the epidemic will turn into a pandemic in just several weeks, spreading first in Asia before reaching Europe and the American continent 50 days later.

At the end of week six, Americans will see 722,000 pandemic cases in the United States, by week nine -- 37.4 million, by week 12 -- 90.8 million, and by the end of week 16, 92.2 million cases, according to Leavitt.

"The reality is ... pandemics happen," the secretary said. "When it comes to a pandemic, we are overdue and we are underprepared."