Western Nations Hoarding Limited Stocks Of Bird Flu Vaccine

by Marwaan Macan-Markar

(IPS) BANGKOK -- A race to corner limited stocks of "Tamiflu," the only known drug capable of stopping an epidemic of the deadly avian-flu, has brought into the open a divide between the developed and developing world that -- if left unchecked -- could have disastrous consequences for all.

The disparity has been fuelled by the speed with which the developed world, led by the United States, has used its financial muscle to acquire global stocks of the drug that health authorities say is the most potent anti-flu medicine currently available.

In addition to securing sufficient doses of Tamiflu to care for over two million people, the U.S. is reportedly making a bid to buy even more stocks from the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, which produces the drug.

Other developed nations like Britain, France and Norway are also reported to have ordered the anti-flu drug to cover between 20 to 40 percent of their respective populations.

Public health experts in the developing world, particularly in Southeast Asia, which is the epicenter of the H5N1 strain of the deadly bird flu virus, are riled by the development-- especially since neither the U.S. nor Europe have suffered from bird flu in the way that Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia have.

"The U.S. and Western countries are gobbling up the drug and denying access to developing countries that need it most," Philippines' health secretary Francisco Duque told reporters here Thursday. "The poor countries once again have been excluded from the arena."

The Philippines, has which watched from the margins as the lethal avian flu swept through its regional neighbors since January 2004, still has to gain access to Tamiflu. "We have nary a stock of this drug," said Duque. "We need to stockpile the drug but we are low down on the pecking order."

Duque was echoing sentiments expressed earlier this week Lee Jong-wook, head of the World Health Organization (WHO). Wealthy countries, he said, should not display an attitude that only the health of their citizens matters and secure stocks of the only available remedy while excluding others, he told media here.

He warned that such a policy would be counterproductive since virus does not respect national boundaries.

He said WHO had a limited stockpile of the drug that could treat about 125,000 patients and that the Geneva-based health body had plans to increase its global stockpile of Tamiflu to about one million doses.

Thailand, often recognized as a leader in public health issues in the region, has secured Tamiflu doses to treat barely 22,000 patients.

Duque and Lee were in Bangkok to participate in a week-long international health conference that focused on health prevention measures. Discussions during the conference, which ended Thursday, focused on bird flu, given the increasing concern over the threat of a global flu pandemic breaking out in the immediate future.

Since avian flu began spreading across Southeast Asia, nearly 60 people have died after having come into contact with infected poultry. Of that, Vietnam had 40 fatalities, Thailand 12, Cambodia four and Indonesia three.

The total number of bird flu cases reported to WHO from these countries is 112, reflecting the high, 50 percent fatality rate of this strain of the flu.

The fear of bird flu mutating into a virulent virus which can be passed from human to human is at the heart of the worry that has given rise to doomsday scenarios of the global pandemic. That is because humans lack a natural response to fight the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

Yet, at the moment, infectious disease researchers say there is little evidence of such mutation. "This is reassuring," a researcher from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. told IPS. "There has been a subtle evolution of the virus but that is something we expect."

Of the two previous global pandemics caused by flu, the one in 1918 which resulted in the deaths of 50 million people across the world, was linked to a flu strain that jumped from birds to humans.

Yet public health experts feel that preparations being mounted to confront another pandemic are dramatically different from anything the world has seen so far.

The push to stockpile the anti-bird flu drug is "really epidemic prevention," said William Aldis, WHO representative in Thailand. "This is a radical and new idea."

"The main purpose of stockpiling is to supply sufficient quantities of the drug to the location to burn out the virus," he said during a press conference. "We are capable of burning out the virus at its source."

And for Southeast Asia to carry out such an operation, the region needs to have between three to five million doses of Tamiflu, Kumnuan Ungchusak, director of the epidemiology division at Thailand's department of disease control, told IPS.

"If the outbreak starts, this region will be the hardest hit," he added. "It will spread fast because of modern transportation, unlike previous pandemics that took one to two months to spread."