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Demand for Antiviral Flu Medication Growing

The avian flu is striking yet again and has managed to kill quite a few people around the globe. This is not only sad but also unnecessary considering the fact that unlike other viruses, this one has a antiviral medication. However, pharmaceutical companies have not been keeping up with the demands and supplies are limited. Le Pharmacy, a leading international online mail-order marketing intermediary, is pleased to announce new limited sources of supply for the antiviral medication Tamiflu. The avian flu medication will be available on a first come, first served basis. Inventories have been artificially restricted, pricing is way up, but there is always some supply on a global basis. Every announcement of a death increases the demand.

An 11-year-old girl died Friday of suspected bird flu in eastern Turkey days after her brother and sister also succumbed. Their doctor said they probably contracted the illness by playing with dead chickens. A fourth sibling from the same family was also seriously ill and breathing with the help of respirators, said Huseyin Avni Sahin, head physician at the hospital in the eastern city of Van where the children were treated. Drugstores, pharmaceutical benefit managers and physicians are reporting that their customers and patients have been building home stockpiles of the prescription antiviral medicine.

The run on Tamiflu was apparently spurred by government warnings, here and abroad, that chances for a worldwide flu epidemic are rising, and by news that Southeast Asia`s H5N1 bird flu, the leading candidate for a pandemic, is moving westward. For more than a year, demand for the drug, known generically as oseltamivir, has been rising as more than three dozen countries began to lay in millions of doses for national stockpiles. Retail demand, however, took a sharp upturn in September, 2005. A five-day course of two pills a day can cost up to $200 at US pharmacies.