# 1279
The UK was one of the first nations to actually stockpile enough Tamiflu to provide a 10-pill course of treatment for 25% of their population. The United States, in comparison, is still at least a year away from reaching that goal.
A handful of other countries, all with much smaller populations than the UK, have managed to stockpile a greater percentage of Tamiflu for their citizens, but many nations aren't stockpiling at all.
While Tamiflu remains our best pharmacological intervention against influenza, there are serious concerns as to how well it would perform during a pandemic, particularly of H5N1. Some scientists worry the virus could develop resistance to antivirals during a pandemic, rendering the remaining stockpile useless.
The traditional 10-pill course (2 pills/day for 5 days) appears to be inadequate for most bird flu patients. Clinical trials are underway to determine the most efficacious dose, with double the dose for double the duration (4 pills/day for 10 days) suspected to be a more realistic treatment regimen.
If adopted, this protocol would quadruple the amount of antiviral medicine each patient would require, cutting the number of patients that could be treated by the existing stockpile by 75%.
Added to that, the initial estimates that 25% of the population could be affected by an influenza pandemic have been called into question. Some scientists have put that number at 50% or more.
Suddenly, that 25% stockpile doesn't look so robust.
The UK Department of Health's Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) has proposed a tripling of their nation's Tamiflu stockpile, and the purchase of enough pre-pandemic vaccine to inoculate their entire population.
While falling short of those recommendations, today the Financial Times is reporting that the UK government will double their Tamiflu stockpile.
Drug stockpile doubles to fight flu pandemic
By Andrew Jack
Published: November 22 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2007 02:00
Orders worth hundreds of millions of pounds to buy new drugs and face-masks to help minimise the impact of any future flu pandemic will be announced by the government on Thursday.
Alan Johnson, the health secretary, will unveil a doubling of the British stockpile of antiviral medicines, as well as increased supplies of face-masks for healthcare workers and antibiotics to treat secondary infections often linked to flu outbreaks.
The decision comes as part of the government's revised pandemic flu plan to be published on Thursday, which also anticipates the closure of schools during an outbreak to reduce the impact of the pandemic.
The order will provide substantial extra revenues to Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical group that markets Tamiflu, the leading antiviral medicine turned into a blockbuster by government and corporate purchases for pandemic stockpiles over the past two years.
The additional volumes will provide sufficient stocks to treat about half the British population – about the proportion that scientists predict could become infected during a pandemic.
However, the government has so far held back from purchasing still more Tamiflu for its widespread use as a prophylactic to prevent infections. It has also not yet decided whether to buy significant quantities of flu vaccines under development by other pharmaceutical companies to protect against the dangerous H5N1 virus, currently widespread among birds in some parts of the world and which scientists fear could threaten humans.
