Doctors report panic buying of Tamiflu

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Doctors around the United States report anxious patients trying to prepare for an avian influenza outbreak by stocking up on Tamiflu.

"I do know that I personally can't give everybody who wants Tamiflu a prescription for it. It just doesn't seem right to me," Harry Oken, an internist in Columbia, Md., told the Washington Post. "If there really was an avian flu epidemic, people who don't need it have it, and people who really need it can't get it."

The H5N1 flu virus, which has sickened millions of domestic and wild birds, has infected fewer than 120 people. But about half of those infected have died, and experts fear a deadly pandemic if the virus mutates to allow direct person-to-person infection.

In the past month, publicity about bird flu has sparked some panic. Giant Food Stores said the number of prescriptions for Tamiflu written at its 165 Washington-area supermarkets in the past three weeks is 10 times last year's level.

Tamiflu can be used to prevent infection or treat the disease. But experts are unsure if conventional doses would be effective against the H5N1 strain.