No Life
October 27th, 2005, 02:03 PM
Roche halts US bird flu drug supplies
Written by Tom Armitage
Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:36 PM ET
ZURICH (Reuters) - Drug maker Roche halted supplies of its antiviral drug to the United States to head off hoarding by consumers fearing bird flu, as another firm, and Vietnam, said they were preparing to make their own medicines.
Tests on the latest suspected human cases of the disease produced negative results on Thursday, but fear remained high that bird flu was spreading around the world among wild birds and poultry and threatened to produce a human pandemic.
Roche Holding AG said it had halted deliveries of Tamiflu to pharmacists in the United States and Canada until the start of the flu season.
Media coverage of the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has driven sales higher, the company said.
"This resulted in increased demand for Tamiflu in part from individuals who are doing private stockpiling and at the moment there is no influenza circulating and the threat of a pandemic has not (materialized)," a spokeswoman said.
"Our priority is to ensure that Tamiflu is available for seasonal use and to fulfil government orders," she added.
British-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Europe's biggest drug maker, said on Thursday it was building capacity and converting more factories to make a pandemic flu vaccine, as it develops a prototype shot to counter the H5N1 bird flu virus.
It also plans to increase output of the anti-flu drug Relenza and is offering free licenses to partners able to produce the inhaled treatment. Relenza, like Roche's Tamiflu, is not a cure but reduces the severity of influenza.
Roche is the only manufacturer of Tamiflu, considered the first line of defense against the H5N1 avian flu virus that some fear could spark an outbreak among humans if it mutates to allow human-to-human transmission. The drug can reduce the severity of influenza and may slow the spread of a pandemic.
Under pressure from generic drug companies, developing nations and the United States, Roche agreed this month to discuss granting licenses to others to make versions of Tamiflu.
TESTS NEGATIVE
Experts say the feared mutation of the virus is most likely to take place in Southeast Asia, where millions of birds have been slaughtered in an attempt to limit its spread.
Cao Minh Quang, head of Vietnam's Pharmaceutical Control Department, said the government had proposed to Roche that it franchise Tamiflu production to Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 41 people.
"But in the situation of a pandemic, we will start the production without permission," Quang said.
He cited a World Health Organization forecast as saying 10 percent of Vietnam's 82 million people could contract the disease in a pandemic.
France said on Thursday tests on one of three tourists suspected of catching H5N1 bird flu in a Thai bird park showed he was not infected.
China said a girl in a village in Hunan province, where there had been an outbreak among birds, did not die of bird flu, as feared, but pneumonia.
H5N1 has killed more than 60 people in four countries in Asia and been found among birds in Croatia, Romania, Turkey and Russia, but no human cases have been reported in Europe.
There is no evidence yet that the disease can be transmitted easily among humans, but experts fear it is only a matter of time. China, with its huge numbers of both humans and poultry, often living close together, is seen as a major area of risk.
China says it has brought under control outbreaks among birds in Inner Mongolia in the north and Anhui province in the east, employing massive culling of birds, quarantines, and vaccinations of residents in affected areas.
But the World Health Organization's China representative said China would probably see more outbreaks.
"In the winter, the virus can survive longer outside its own host ... so we expect more cases, especially in this part of the world," Henk Bekedam told Reuters.
Bekedam added that in Europe, the virus could still be eliminated, but Asia's best hope was that it would be contained.
MONITOR BORDERS
Authorities around the world are nervously monitoring borders, testing arriving wild birds and clamping down on the import and movement of birds and poultry.
South Pacific leaders ended a two-day summit in Port Moresby on Thursday with a plan to pool resources to combat bird flu.
WHO's representative in Sri Lanka said birds migrating from Russia, where the virus has already killed wildfowl, could carry it to Sri Lanka and to India.
"The virus seems to be becoming increasingly aggressive and pathogenic," said Agostino Borra. "More types of wild and domestic birds are becoming infected."
The Asian Development Bank says even a mild pandemic could cost Asia up to $110 billion, aside from the cost in lives.
The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization warned however that blanket bans on poultry imports introduced by some countries were unnecessary and destructive to world trade.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand cautioned against any "dramatization" of the situation. "What we are talking about today in Europe, is about the risk of a disease, of a virus that affects animals," he said.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck and Guo Shiping in Beijing, Kim Coghill in Hong Kong, Michael Perry in Port Moresby, Manny Mogato in Manila, Ho Binh Minh in Hanoi and Ben Hirschler in London)
Reuters.com (http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-27T163616Z_01_YUE450860_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-WRAP.xml)
Written by Tom Armitage
Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:36 PM ET
ZURICH (Reuters) - Drug maker Roche halted supplies of its antiviral drug to the United States to head off hoarding by consumers fearing bird flu, as another firm, and Vietnam, said they were preparing to make their own medicines.
Tests on the latest suspected human cases of the disease produced negative results on Thursday, but fear remained high that bird flu was spreading around the world among wild birds and poultry and threatened to produce a human pandemic.
Roche Holding AG said it had halted deliveries of Tamiflu to pharmacists in the United States and Canada until the start of the flu season.
Media coverage of the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has driven sales higher, the company said.
"This resulted in increased demand for Tamiflu in part from individuals who are doing private stockpiling and at the moment there is no influenza circulating and the threat of a pandemic has not (materialized)," a spokeswoman said.
"Our priority is to ensure that Tamiflu is available for seasonal use and to fulfil government orders," she added.
British-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Europe's biggest drug maker, said on Thursday it was building capacity and converting more factories to make a pandemic flu vaccine, as it develops a prototype shot to counter the H5N1 bird flu virus.
It also plans to increase output of the anti-flu drug Relenza and is offering free licenses to partners able to produce the inhaled treatment. Relenza, like Roche's Tamiflu, is not a cure but reduces the severity of influenza.
Roche is the only manufacturer of Tamiflu, considered the first line of defense against the H5N1 avian flu virus that some fear could spark an outbreak among humans if it mutates to allow human-to-human transmission. The drug can reduce the severity of influenza and may slow the spread of a pandemic.
Under pressure from generic drug companies, developing nations and the United States, Roche agreed this month to discuss granting licenses to others to make versions of Tamiflu.
TESTS NEGATIVE
Experts say the feared mutation of the virus is most likely to take place in Southeast Asia, where millions of birds have been slaughtered in an attempt to limit its spread.
Cao Minh Quang, head of Vietnam's Pharmaceutical Control Department, said the government had proposed to Roche that it franchise Tamiflu production to Vietnam, where bird flu has killed 41 people.
"But in the situation of a pandemic, we will start the production without permission," Quang said.
He cited a World Health Organization forecast as saying 10 percent of Vietnam's 82 million people could contract the disease in a pandemic.
France said on Thursday tests on one of three tourists suspected of catching H5N1 bird flu in a Thai bird park showed he was not infected.
China said a girl in a village in Hunan province, where there had been an outbreak among birds, did not die of bird flu, as feared, but pneumonia.
H5N1 has killed more than 60 people in four countries in Asia and been found among birds in Croatia, Romania, Turkey and Russia, but no human cases have been reported in Europe.
There is no evidence yet that the disease can be transmitted easily among humans, but experts fear it is only a matter of time. China, with its huge numbers of both humans and poultry, often living close together, is seen as a major area of risk.
China says it has brought under control outbreaks among birds in Inner Mongolia in the north and Anhui province in the east, employing massive culling of birds, quarantines, and vaccinations of residents in affected areas.
But the World Health Organization's China representative said China would probably see more outbreaks.
"In the winter, the virus can survive longer outside its own host ... so we expect more cases, especially in this part of the world," Henk Bekedam told Reuters.
Bekedam added that in Europe, the virus could still be eliminated, but Asia's best hope was that it would be contained.
MONITOR BORDERS
Authorities around the world are nervously monitoring borders, testing arriving wild birds and clamping down on the import and movement of birds and poultry.
South Pacific leaders ended a two-day summit in Port Moresby on Thursday with a plan to pool resources to combat bird flu.
WHO's representative in Sri Lanka said birds migrating from Russia, where the virus has already killed wildfowl, could carry it to Sri Lanka and to India.
"The virus seems to be becoming increasingly aggressive and pathogenic," said Agostino Borra. "More types of wild and domestic birds are becoming infected."
The Asian Development Bank says even a mild pandemic could cost Asia up to $110 billion, aside from the cost in lives.
The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization warned however that blanket bans on poultry imports introduced by some countries were unnecessary and destructive to world trade.
French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand cautioned against any "dramatization" of the situation. "What we are talking about today in Europe, is about the risk of a disease, of a virus that affects animals," he said.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck and Guo Shiping in Beijing, Kim Coghill in Hong Kong, Michael Perry in Port Moresby, Manny Mogato in Manila, Ho Binh Minh in Hanoi and Ben Hirschler in London)
Reuters.com (http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-27T163616Z_01_YUE450860_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-WRAP.xml)