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Bird Flu Strain Resistant to Drug Stockpile

Posted on: Saturday, 15 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

By WILLIAM TINNING

A STRAIN of the deadly bird flu virus that is resistant to the main drug being stockpiled in the UK to fight any outbreak has been identified by scientists.

The government has purchased 14.6 million treatment courses of Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug considered the first line of defence against a flu pandemic which experts have warned could kill at least 50,000 people in Scotland.

However, it emerged last night that a Vietnamese girl has a strain of the H5N1 avian flu that is resistant to the drug, raising questions about its longterm effectiveness.

The revelation came as European Union veterinary experts agreed to a package of urgent measures intended to prevent the avian flu virus from entering the 25-nation bloc.

The government has no plans to offer Tamiflu to healthy people as a precaution.

But the use of Tamiflu as a preventative measure has been adopted in Asian hotspots where about 60 people have been killed by the virus. New findings suggest that move may be contributing to the emergence of a drug-resistant strain.

The 14-year-old Vietnamese girl is believed to be one of the first H5N1 victims to acquire the virus through person-toperson transmission. She had no known contact with poultry but had cared for her brother while he was infected.

Health experts fear that if the virus mutates into a form that transmits easily between people it could trigger a pandemic claiming millions of lives in a matter of months.

A team led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka, from the University of Tokyo in Japan, looked at 10 viral clones from the girl and found six were highly resistant to Tamiflu. Three others were slightly resistant and one was "highly sensitive".

Due to be published in the journal Nature, the finding illustrates the need to find other drugs to treat influenza, the researchers said.

Tamiflu is currently seen as the only drug which will stop the reproduction of H5N1 at early stages of infection.

Professor Kawaoka stressed there was no need to "panic" but said other drugs should also be stockpiled.

Since surfacing in Hong Kong in 1997, H5N1 has spread in flocks of poultry across Asia and is now in Turkey.

After two days of emergency talks, EU experts said urgent action was required to prevent bird flu from spreading further westward.

They said measures should be taken "to prevent contact between wild and domestic species as far as it is practicable to do so". Scientists believe wild birds are to blame for bringing the virus from Asia to Romania and Turkey.

The experts did not require EU farmers to bring their poultry flocks indoors, as was ordered in the Netherlands earlier this year, but left those decisions to member nations to make "according to national circumstances".

Nine people were tested yesterday for possible bird flu from the Turkish town of Turgutlu after 40 pigeons died. Authorities later said no illness was detected but the nine remained in hospital for observation.

Source: Herald, The; Glasgow (UK)

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