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Negotiations Under Way to Stockpile Bird Flu Drugs in South-East Asia

Posted on: Wednesday, 10 August 2005, 09:03 CDT

NEGOTIATIONS are under way to stockpile bird flu-fighting drugs for south-east Asia to help guard against a potential global flu pandemic.

Dr Lee Jong-wook, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), said the UN health agency hoped to acquire one million doses of the anti-viral Tamiflu, the only drug known to be effective against avian influenza in humans. He said talks were under way with other countries and HoffmannLa Roche, the Swiss drug manufacturer, to allow the medicine to be distributed to poor countries free or at highly discounted rates.

The WHO has only enough Tamiflu to treat about 125,000 people, he said in Bangkok, Thailand.

"WHO has a very limited stock.We want to increase the stockpile and we would like to deploy this to countries in this region."

Lee also warned that it made no sense for wealthy countries to hoard large volumes of either Tamiflu or of an experimental vaccine that has shown promise in humans.

He said the best way to control the virus if it began spreading among humans was to hit it hard at the source, with wealthier countries sharing their drugs.

The US already has enough Tamiflu to treat 2.3 million people and is working to acquire more, while Britain, France, Finland, Norway and New Zealand are placing orders that would cover between 20percent and 40percent of their populations.

Bird flu has devastated poultry stocks across Asia and killed 61 people in the region since late 2003, with the latest death reported yesterday in Vietnam.Most cases have been traced back to contact with poultry, but Lee said WHO was concerned the virus could mutate into a form that is highly contagious among people.

Two of the last three global pandemics originated in Asia.

The Asian flu of 1957-58, first identified in China, and the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69 each killed more than one million people. But the Spanish flu of 1918-19 killed up to 40 million people and brought illness to an estimated 20percent to 40percent of the world's population.

Outbreaks that have killed wildfowl and poultry in Russia and Kazakhstan since mid-July have raised fears the disease could spread to humans on the Eurasian land mass, sparking fears of a worldwide epidemic.

However, a WHO official said yesterday its bird flu epidemic was subsiding because the weather was growing colder. "The [epidemic] will vanish in 10-15 days, " said Oleg Kiselyov. He said Russia would soon test and introduce a new type of vaccine to prevent humans from getting the virus.

The first batch will be sent to the worst affected Novosibirsk region as soon as October, he said. -AP/Reuters

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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