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There was a time when countries announced how many doses of tamiflu they had on hand, but I suppose those days are gone. This article tells us the United Arab Emirates has 1 tamiflu million pills stockpiled.
UAE stockpiles Tamiflu tablets to cope with bird flu
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has stockpiled over one million tablets of Tamiflu, the best known drug to treat bird flu among humans, in a bid to combat possible outbreak of the disease in the country, the Khaleej Times reported on Monday.
"The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with other health authorities in the country, have managed to store more than one million pills of the drug to avert looming hazards bird flu virus poses," Ali Shukur, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, was quoted as saying.
In addition, the ministry is working to provide hospitals and medical institutions with adequate precautionary items such as masks and gloves to ensure safety of people working at these facilities, Shukur said.
"We have set a plan about proper methods that should be adopted in isolating patients in case of discovering incidents. Ways of protecting residents of the area and the nearby areas where the virus might be detected has also been studied," he added.
The ministry has also formed a team to follow up closely any developments concerning outbreak of the flu in neighboring countries and evaluate impact they might have on the UAE, he said.
At least 46 cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu have been detected in Kuwait since Feb. 25, which has raised concerns over the contagious disease in the Gulf region.
Source: Xinhua
According to the CIA Factbook, the UAE has 2.6 million people.
One million tamiflu tablets would provide 100,000 10-pill doses, which is considered to be the minimum treatment protocol. There are some doctors who believe it may require 20 or more pills to effectively treat an H5N1 infection. But for now, the `official' recommendation is 10 pills.
The goal for most nations is to stockpile enough tamiflu to treat 25% of their citizens.
For the UAE, that would require about 6.25 million pills. Right now, they have enough to treat 4% of their population.
Not nearly enough, but as with everything during a pandemic, it's better than nothing.
