Health experts call for stockpiling anti-flu drugs

Health experts called on Thursday for the creation of an international stockpile of life-saving antiviral drugs amid warning signs that a human influenza pandemic may be near.

The experts also called for efforts to explore regional or global production of vaccines, as manufacturers are concentrated in a few wealthy countries.

"A stockpile must be developed for a pandemic response," said Teresa Tam, a specialist at Health Canada.

"There will not be enough time to generate more antivirals during a pandemic," she told a news conference after three-day talks at the World Health Organization (WHO) including experts from 40 countries.

"If we think a pandemic is starting and there is human-to-human transmission, such an international stockpile might be utilized in quite small outbreaks at the start to try to avert or slow down a pandemic."

The WHO has said antiviral drugs and vaccines would be in short supply in the early stages of a long-predicted flu pandemic, and the meeting was called to review global readiness for such a development.

"We know another pandemic is inevitable," WHO Director-General Jong-Wook Lee told the meeting's closing session. "We are certain we will face shortages of vaccines and drugs at the start of a pandemic and perhaps for several months to come."

Tam said many developing countries lacked antiviral supplies, adding that Vietnam reported having only 20 doses before the recent outbreak of bird flu.

Drug manufacturers are currently only producing what is required to combat annual seasonal flu outbreaks in the northern and southern hemisphere, according to Tam and WHO officials.

The annual influenza epidemic kills between 500,000 and one million people worldwide, according to the U.N. agency.

There has been an average of 27.5 years between pandemics since 1883. The largest, in 1918-1919, killed 40 to 50 million people, with a mortality rate of 2.2 percent.

The last such pandemic was in 1968, although there have been 12 outbreaks with that potential since then. Klaus Stohr, head of WHO's global influenza program, said that only 36 of the organization's 192 members had pandemic combat plans.

"There is no time for complacency," he said. "The virus is sneaking around the corner."