The House has passed a bill that says people violating state quarantine laws would face higher fines. That's a lot less dramatic than the barbed wire featured in a movie Tuesday night about avian flu turning into a global pandemic in humans, but the $1,000 fine, supporters say, is enough to grab people's attention.

The bill will increase the authority of public health agencies, such as the Department of Health and Environmental Control, should disaster hit the state.

Rep. Walton McLeod, D-Little Mountain, who co-sponsored the bill, said it was not directly intended to address the avian flu, but it could certainly address that and other communicable diseases.

"Our intention was not to do something fresh or novel or revolutionary," McLeod said. "Rather, it was to improve the stationary authority DHEC has had since the late 1800s."

The bill, which has been referred to the Senate Medical Affairs Committee, attempts to bring up to date the state's power to combat communicable disease, he said. It adds a $1,000 fine or 30 days imprisonment to those who violate quarantine orders by leaving isolation or entering restricted premises.

While not originally directed at the bird flu, the proposed legislation will put in place some protections, he said.

"The avian flu is something we are really not yet able to fully anticipate and predict," McLeod said.

The bill allows the state to accept volunteer health care providers from South Carolina or elsewhere.

The proposed legislation relieves the workers of any liability during trauma care in an emergency as long as action was not negligent or willful. It is part of the state's much larger health code.

Rep. Shirley Hinson, R-Goose Creek, said the stricter fines could help the public take quarantine laws more seriously, especially in regards to the bird flu.

"It seems to be a very serious disease we are looking at," she said. "It's death. If that's what it takes to get people's attention, I support it.

"Often we say that happens elsewhere. I don't think we should turn our heads and say that's not something we should deal with."

Rep. Wallace Scarborough, R-Charleston, said the proposed legislation needs to be seriously considered from a homeland security standpoint as well.

"We need to take a very close look at everything coming in and protecting our resources," he said. "It is important. If you are going to get anybody's attention, you have to raise the fines."

While the nation debates the validity of the feared pandemic, Scarborough said it's better to be cautious.

"You have to consider it harmful until you can rule it out," he said. "The jury is still out on bird flu. I have heard a lot of conflicting reports on it"

In Tuesday's movie, bird flu kills millions of people as a mutated form of the virus spreads like wildfire. Emergency services are overwhelmed, and bodies are bulldozed into mass graves and burned on giant funeral pyres. Survivors fight for food, water and medical care. There's even a grisly autopsy scene in which a doctor explains how a bird flu victim died. It's enough to make a viewer think death from bird flu is just around the corner.

While ABC offered a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie, saying it was fictionalizing the problem, the facts tell a dramatically different story than the film. There have been no reported cases of avian flu in the U.S., Canada and South America. That could change in the fall as birds begin migrating south from Canada and Alaska, said Dr. Mike Schmidt, professor and vice chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Clemson University Extension Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture actively monitor wild bird populations for the presence of avian flu. In South Carolina, the major migratory flyways are along the coast, Schmidt said.

In its present form, the bird flu virus isn't much of a threat to people, but it can be transmitted if a person is exposed to high concentrations of the virus in blood or visceral fluid. That sort of thing could happen while slaughtering an infected chicken, he said.

"It's a pandemic in birds, not people," Schmidt said.

Staff writer Yvonne Wenger contributed to this report.

Reach Prentiss Findlay at 745-5854 or pfindlay@postandcouier.com and Dave Munday at 745-5862 or dmunday@postandcourier.com.