Anti-flu drug stockpile ready for pandemic

TORONTO, June 20 (UPI) -- In the space of four years, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann-La Roche said it has increased its production of anti-viral drugs 50-fold.

"We will produce 400 million courses of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) this year," David Reddy, global influenza pandemic task force leader for Roche in Basel, Switzerland, told United Press International, "enough for all our commitments to more than 80 governments that are stockpiling the drug in case of an influenza pandemic." By comparison, in 1999 to 2003, the company produced 8 million treatment courses a year.

With deadly H5N1 avian flu emerging in Europe, Asia and Africa, Reddy said the world is just two or three mutations from a disease strain that will efficiently transmit the infection from person to person.

"When that happens," he said, "there literally will be no more anti-virals available. It takes us a year to produce 400 million courses of treatment. The pandemic could be causing worldwide illness in weeks."

In a poster presentation at the Options for Control of Influenza VI meeting in Toronto, Reddy outlined Roche's plans for continued research with oseltamivir and its emergency production plans in case the pandemic erupts.

Anne Moscona, professor of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology at the Weill Medical School of Cornell University in New York, told UPI, "We need to start practicing good influenza control habits during seasonal epidemics to prepare for the pandemic."

She said that includes improving handwashing techniques, not going to work sick and not sending sick children to school, and getting yearly vaccinations.

Moscona said doctors need to prescribe anti-virals such as oseltamivir or zanamivir, sold by GlaxoSmithKline as Relenza. "When used early, these drugs effectively stop influenza early," she said.

She said the anti-virals also prevent spread of disease if given to contacts of ill individuals.

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Ed Susman, UPI Medical Correspondent