UK buys anti-flu drugs for 14 million people

The £200 million (€291 million) investment is intended for those who are considered high-risk. This includes the over-65s, those with chronic disease and the very young.

The 14.6 million courses purchased is enough to treat one in four of the UK population - the proportion of which the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends.

Stocks of the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) have already been purchased for key sectors such as medical and emergency services. Scientists believe the antivirals should buy time so that vaccines targeted against any particular strain of flu, probably mutated from avian viruses, could be developed.

Roche will supply 14.6 million courses of Tamiflu over the next two financial years, with 7.3 million courses available by the end of 2005-06 and the rest as soon as possible during the next financial year.

Pandemic flu is unlike the 'seasonal' flu seen every winter in the UK. It would be expected to cause more serious illness and affect far more people. Experts believe a new pandemic strain of flu is likely to spread rapidly across the globe. The UK government estimates this flu to cause anything between 21,000 and 709,000 deaths.

Other measures set out in the plan include the consideration of how antiviral drugs can be used to treat people who are confirmed or suspected cases of pandemic flu. Current drugs that can be considered include Symmetrel (amantadine), Flumadine (rimantadine) and Zanamivir (relenza).

The UK's response to the predicted pandemic comes after a report published in this month's Lancet Infectious Diseases​, which states that the world is poorly prepared to fight the next influenza pandemic, with the window of opportunity to prepare narrowing.

The paper issues a call to action for governments to accelerate pandemic planning and to ensure that scientific advances of the past decades, in particular new antiviral therapies, are maximised by assembling adequate stockpiles before the pandemic hits.

Today's warning is particularly relevant since influenza experts believe that two of the three widely-accepted criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met by the current H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in east Asia; firstly, a new influenza virus strain has emerged, and secondly, the virus has spread to humans. The last barrier will be the transmission of the virus from human to human.

Professor Oxford, Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry, London commented: "We are faced with an almost inevitable public health crisis, but are in a strong position to prepare, since we know more about the influenza virus than ever before and we have the therapies available to fight it. However, governments must act quickly to prepare in good time to minimise the effects of the pandemic."​

Other countries have also heeded the warning and have made preparations for the anticipated pandemic. The US government has included additional action designed to prevent a late-season surge in vaccine demand such as the one experienced last year.

Preparations include instructing US vaccine manufacturers licensed to produce influenza vaccine for the US market producing a supply of approximately 100 million doses of inactivated influenza vaccine for this year, significantly more doses than have ever been produced for the United States.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) planned to establish a stockpile of 4.5 million doses of influenza vaccine for the nation's children. The primary purpose of the stockpile was to meet the late-season paediatric demand.

CDC augmented domestic influenza surveillance this season with surveillance for paediatric hospitalisations and paediatric mortality reporting. In addition, CDC is expanding its capacity for rapid detection of new strains of influenza viruses and has funded a study to prospectively evaluate vaccine effectiveness during this winter's influenza season.