THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) yesterday repeated its stance that Tamiflu should not be used as a preventative treatment against swine flu as the World Health Organisation (WHO) moved to dampen speculation that the virus had developed a resistance to the drug on the US-Mexico border.
The HSE has already advised GPs to stop administering Tamiflu as a preventive drug, and said the drug should only be administered to people with severe symptoms or chronic underlying illnesses.
According to the HSE, the State has sufficient stocks of the antiviral drugs oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) to treat 55 per cent of the population.
It says it has one million packs of Tamiflu for adults, Tamiflu in a paediatric preparation form to treat 63,000 children, and 70,000 packs of Relenza for adults.
Earlier this week, Agence France-Presse reported that a strain of the H1N1 resistant to the anti-viral drug had emerged around the border area in El Paso and near McAllen, Texas, citing Maria Teresa Cerqueira, chief of the US-Mexico border office for the WHO.
However, yesterday Ms Cerqueira said there was no evidence of viral resistance near the border and she had no information about drug-evading cases of the new H1N1 flu strain.
“I said there was concern, and we recommended surveillance for this possibility as people on the border often go back and forth for medical care and to buy medicines, but I had no information on any cases,” Ms Cerqueira said. “It is an unfortunate misinterpretation that needs to be clarified.”
Tamiflu, which is made by Roche Holding, is the main medication used to treat influenza, including the pandemic strain. Studies have shown it can lessen the symptoms and duration of the disease if taken within 48 hours of the onset of the illness. Resistance occurs in about 0.4 per cent of infections treated. Isolated cases of Tamiflu-resistant swine flu have been reported in Canada, Hong Kong, Japan and Denmark.
A Roche spokeswoman said it was not surprising to see such cases as more people were being treated.
According to the most recent figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, there are 217 confirmed cases in Ireland, with 66 per cent of cases in people under 30.
Swine flu had infected more than 130,000 people and caused more than 800 deaths globally as of July 27th, according to the WHO.
