Bird flu drugs: India has enough stocksAdd to Clippings
Kounteya Sinha & Chandrika Mago

NEW DELHI: India doesn't have to worry about the availability of anti-bird flu drugs. The health ministry had started stockpiling 80,000 cycles (8 lakh tablets) of Tamiflu (Roche's best known anti-influenza drug) soon after avian bird flu started spreading rapidly to several parts of the world, including West Europe and Africa in the past two weeks.

So, on Saturday, soon after the ministry's worst fears were confirmed that the flu had arrived in India, following the discovery of dead chickens in Nandurbar (Maharashtra), consignments of Tamiflu were at hand to be rushed with the rapid response team of National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) to the affected area.

The central authorities here have not reached for the panic button yet. Although eight people on these farms have so far been isolated by a team from the Institute of Virology in Pune, and over 80 blood samples tested, no human case has, according to Union health secretary P Hota, been found clinically positive. "None of them have been found to be clinically positive. However no chances are being taken. Tamiflu will be given to them orally," he said. ...