Bird flu medicine arrives on islands

These have been stored in Son Dureta hospital over the past week, according to sources from the Ministry.
On August 24 the Balearic Government received a total of five boxes of the medication Tamiflu, each weighing seven kilos, 20 percent in capsules and 80 percent in powder. Tamiflu is a medication developed by Roche laboratories and not sold in Spain. The medication is in boxes of 10 capsules each containing 75 milligrammes of the active ingredient “osetalmavir”. These 42'000 treatments make up the first consignment to arrive in the Balearics with the aim of being prepared for a possible pandemic of bird flu. The rest of the antiviral medication will not arrive on the islands until early 2007. The Balearic Government bought 126'000 antiviral treatments through the Spanish Ministry of Health, but if these are used up there will be no more until this next consignment. Each box of Tamiflu, with 750 grammes of “osetalmavir”, is considered by experts a “sufficient” quantity to treat a person for five days, as during that time the symptoms should recede. Nevertheless, of the total quantity of medication requested by the Balearic Government, the antiviral inhalant Relenza made by Glaxo, has been acquired as “strategic stock”, with the aim of having an alternative treatment for those cases in which it is necessary, said the director general of Public Health and Participation, Antoni Pallicer. For her part, the coordinator of the Medication Information Centre, Nuria Vilalta, confirmed the suitability of osetalmavir as a treatment for bird flu “if it is applied immediately after discovering the first symptoms”, which is to say it must be given during the first 72 hours of the infection. However, she said that “it is impossible” to actually know if Tamiflu would be equally effective if the H5N1 virus mutated and went on to infect other people. She said the highest probability of discovering cases of bird flu on the Balearics during the next few months would be among people who had travelled to countries which had already had outbreaks of bird flu and who could show the symptoms, which are very similar to common flu, after their return to the islands.