It's good to see the state moving full steam ahead to find a new medical provider for its emergency clinic at the Honolulu International Airport — part of the state's comprehensive plan to combat avian flu.

That progressive sense of urgency is the right prescription to ensure that the effects of an avian flu pandemic can be mitigated here at home.

The airport lost its emergency provider late last year after its contract with The Queens Medical Center was not renewed. In re-establishing the clinic and stepping up its search for a new provider, state officials rightly noted that the airport clinic was a critical component in our defense against avian flu.

Indeed, our geographic proximity to Asia and the frequency and high volume of travelers to and from Asia puts Hawai'i on the front lines, should that pandemic hit.

But the airport clinic is only part of what we're doing to prepare.

Hawai'i has become the first state to screen incoming passengers on a voluntary basis; health officials are stockpiling enough anti-viral drugs to treat, at minimum, 25 percent of the state's resident and visitor population; and we are developing a lab with the capability to test for avian flu and other flu strains here.

"If you look at what the State of Hawai'i's Department of Health has done, it's among the best in the country," said Duane Gubler, director of the Asia Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the university's medical school.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (in Atlanta) ranked Hawai'i among the top in the country in terms of being prepared."

That's a distinction we can all be proud of and one that will surely serve us well in the future.