Such a policy could 'blunt' a spike of cases, reducing pressure on health resources, he said. 'On the other hand, we do have this large stockpile available and I think there is an advantage in trying to treat cases early, in order to reduce the severity and the number of patients who end up needing hospital care.'

'If the treatment is delayed they are relatively ineffective. Openshaw said antivirals were effective only if used within 36 to 48 hours of symptoms developing. Many of us who do clinical work and are clinically trained had a bit more of a jaundiced view of how things may turn out.' 'Maybe some of the less clinical scientific advisers perhaps slightly over-inflated expectations of the ease and efficiency of antiviral treatment. 'I think there was, in some quarters, a slight over-optimism about the acceptability of prophylactic medication and its effectiveness,' said Openshaw, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. If you get a resistant strain that becomes dominant in the autumn, Tamiflu will then be useless.'Ī senior government adviser, Prof Peter Openshaw, said the government was told during the early stages of the current outbreak of the 'significant side effects' that Tamiflu was causing in some people. It was put there for an outbreak of far higher mortality than we have. 'I think we should stop the national pandemic flu service. We should be reconsidering its issue, rather than encouraging its use. At the moment there is no desperate need for Tamiflu. 'We are increasing the possibility that the flu will become resistant sooner or later. 'I am concerned about the vast amount of Tamiflu that is going out almost unregulated,' he told the Guardian.

The concern was seconded by flu expert Hugh Pennington, emeritus professor at Aberdeen University, who called for the national flu line to be shut down. Oxford University researchers have warned that antivirals are not a 'magic bullet' against flu, and that resistance to the drug could develop, making it useless to fight any future and potentially more serious pandemic flu strain. Last month, the government launched the national pandemic flu service which authorised more than 511,000 courses of Tamiflu and Relenza treatment during its first fortnight in operation. 'Some people wanted to take a long-term view of the risk of resistance developing and to seek to preserve the effectiveness of antivirals for the next pandemic, which may be more severe.' 'There were discussions within the Health Protection Authority and the Department of Health, once it became clear that swine flu was a relatively mild infection, about whether to reserve antivirals for high-risk groups and to advise the general population to treat themselves with paracetamol or ibuprofen,' said Dingwall, director of the Institute for Science and Society at Nottingham University. It suggested the government explain to people that they would not be given medicine they did not need and should use off-the- shelf flu treatments.

Today one of the country's foremost flu experts called for the national helpline to be shut down to stop hundreds of thousands of doses of Tamiflu going out in an unregulated way, which could render it useless when a more dominant strain returns in the autumn.Īs it became clear that the current outbreak only had mild symptoms, the committee recommended that antivirals should only be given to those in high risk categories, like pregnant women or people with existing respiratory illnesses.

it would simply be unacceptable to the UK population to tell them we had a huge stockpile of drugs but they were not going to be made available,' Professor Robert Dingwall, a member of the Committee on Ethical Aspects of Pandemic Influenza, said. But ministers pressed ahead with a policy of mass prescription, fearing the public would not tolerate being told that the millions of doses of Tamiflu held by the state could not be used during a pandemic, one of the committee members has told the Guardian.

Tamiflu cant keep it down