Word: flu
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...vaccine. For most of us, those needless deaths prick our consciences and motivate us to open our wallets, but they don't threaten our own health. Avian influenza is different. Though the H5N1 virus is spreading and killing mainly in Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, the possibility that bird flu could mutate and become a pandemic is a serious threat to us all. That's why Jakarta's fight with the World Health Organization (WHO) over how an avian-flu vaccine should be developed and distributed is so important...
...years, countries around the world have shared new flu strains with the WHO, to help scientists track genetic changes in the fast-mutating virus. The WHO uses that information to create a seed strain to drug companies, at no cost, which then manufacture and sell commercial flu vaccines. That process continued with avian flu until late last year, when Indonesia-the country that has suffered the most bird-flu deaths-suddenly stopped sharing virus samples and instead signed an agreement with the U.S. drug company Baxter to provide virus strains in exchange for help in eventually producing its own vaccine...
...grim logic of virology, Indonesia's decision was unconscionable and self-defeating. We need surveillance in every nation to track bird flu as it changes. But Jakarta got the attention of WHO officials, who came to the Indonesian capital earlier this week for an emergency meeting at which Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari called the current distribution system "more dangerous than the threat of an H5N1 pandemic itself." On March 27 the two sides reached a temporary compromise: Indonesia would resume sharing virus samples with the WHO, but for now that access wouldn't be extended to the drug industry...
...What they have in common is that each victim took the influenza antiviral Tamiflu shortly before they died. According to the Japanese Health Ministry, 54 people have died after taking Tamiflu - the drug governments around the world have stockpiled for use against avian flu - since the drug was approved for use in Japan in 2000. Most suspiciously, in multiple cases people, including those cases above, acted erratically after taking Tamiflu. Though the Health Ministry has said there is no clear evidence linking Tamiflu to the deaths, there is growing concern among doctors and parents in Japan over the drug...
...Tamiflu were only needed for normal, seasonal influenza, this debate wouldn't matter outside Japan. In most Western countries Tamiflu, which can speed up recovery from the flu by a day or so at most, has barely been used. It's only been in prescription drug-happy Japan, where the government effectively made Tamiflu free, that the drug became popular before bird flu made it a household word. But because Tamiflu has been one of the few drugs to show effectiveness against H5N1 avian flu, it has become the key pharmacological component in international pandemic preparation plans. If a pandemic...