State and federal health authorities held a video conference meeting this morning to discuss plans and concerns over bird flu, which has devastated poultry populations in Asia, killed 62 people, and recently shown up in birds in Europe.

After the floor was opened to questions from state authorities, Dr. Paul Effler, chief of the state Health Department's Disease Outbreak Control Division, asked officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about federal plans for international travel should a disease pandemic break out.

Effler cited concerns about the effect a travel ban could have on Hawai'i's tourist-dependent economy.

"Everything is on the table at the moment. But I wouldn't say that we're devising plans that the second ... we hear about a pandemic, that we're going to shut down travel," said Rachel Eibex, associate director for science at the Atlanta-based CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.

Eibex said the CDC plans to work with state officials to find the least restrictive and most effective way to control the outbreak.

Following the meeting, Effler said he understood federal officials' inability to clearly outline the strategies they intend to use if the U.S. is threatened by a spreading disease.

"It's hard to predict what it will look like. So it's hard to commit yourself to a containment strategy in advance," he said.

But economists would need to be a part of any discussions of strategies involving a travel ban, he said.

"If you did propose some sort of draconian ban, what would be the other negative impacts? You may actually help society in this way and hurt it in another. So one would have to balance out the risks and benefits for every strategy we'd implement," he said.