Swiss drug maker Roche AG has given the go-ahead for Indonesia to make
a version of the Tamiflu antiviral drug in order to fight a looming
avian flu crisis, the country's health minister said Friday.
Siti Fadillah Supari said her department would get the raw materials
from South Korea.
Eight Indonesians have died since July after contracting the H5N1
virus from infected poultry.
Tamiflu is designed to block the flu virus from escaping from an
infected cell and spreading further in the body, if taken within 48
hours of getting the flu.
Indonesia is home to 220 million people, and has said in the past it
wants to have enough Tamiflu on hand to treat 11 per cent of its
population.
A Roche spokeswoman told Reuters news service that the drug
manufacturer does not actually hold a patent for Tamiflu in Indonesia.
"If they want to produce [it], they can go ahead," she said. "There is
no need for them to get a licence."
Concerns about the H5N1 virus were given new life Friday with the news
of a new outbreak among hundreds of chickens in Indonesia's Aceh
province.
So far, people coming down with the disease have become infected from
contact with infected poultry, but world health experts fear the virus
will evolve so that it is easily transmitted from person to person.
That could create a worldwide outbreak that has the potential to kill
millions of people.
So far, about 65 people have died after contracting the H5N1 virus.
www.cbc.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment