Romanian flu outbreak – H5N1 confirmed!

Romanian officials have urged calm after quarantining an eastern area of their country due to an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 Avian flu strain. Migratory birds carry the strain and efforts are being made to limit their contact with poultry. Seems like an impossible task.

The money quote from a European health official is “Experts take the view that an influenza pandemic is inevitable and may be imminent”.

The 1918 flu pandemic, which killed more than 40 million people, was also believed to have originated in birds. This is quite disturbing.

Tamiflu vaccine patent holder Roche Labs has recently stated it will not allow others to make the vaccine – even though their production ability cannot meet anticipated needs. Nice to know they care about human life more than profits, isn’t it?

"Something has to be done,'' said Ira Longini, an Emory University professor whose computer model of a potential avian flu pandemic shows that an outbreak could be snuffed out within a month by rushing antiviral drugs to the place where it started. "When you think of the potential damage a pandemic flu could do, and how little drug we have, the situation is quite absurd.”

There is hope however as a major Indian drug company, Cipla, has announced it will rapidly start to produce a generic version of the vaccine.

“Right or wrong, we're going to commercialize and make oseltamivir," said Dr. Yusuf K. Hamied, chairman of Cipla of Bombay, using the drug's generic name and acknowledging that he might face a fight in the Indian courts with Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant that holds the patent.

On the other hand, it is nice to know there really is a drug company that cares about human life.