By Marilyn Bardsley
May 23, 2006
Geneva (Crime Library) — U.S. Health and Human Services Sec. Mike Leavitt announced yesterday at the World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, that the U.S. has shipped an unspecified amount of Tamiflu, a key antiviral drug used in the treatment of avian influenza, to a secure location in an unnamed Asian country.
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| HHS Secy. Michael Leavitt |
"It is a stockpile that would belong to the United States and we would control its deployment," Leavitt said at the annual meeting of the U.N.'s World Health Organization.
While the U.S. Tamiflu may be offered as part of the international community's efforts to contain a pandemic, if containment was not possible, the Tamiflu would be sent back to the U.S. stockpile of antiviral influenza medications.
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| WHO seal |
U.S. supplies of Tamiflu are much lower than most Western countries and presently would not cover even 10% of the U.S. population, but Leavitt hopes to have 75 million courses of Tamiflu by the end of next year.
Dr. Henry L. Niman of Recombinomics, Inc., an expert on influenza genetics, is concerned that the deployment of the Tamiflu just as Indonesia is unsuccessfully trying to control outbreaks of a particularly deadly avian influenza in humans "signals a potentially serious situation."
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