NEW YORK (AP) - The bird flu virus that infected a Vietnamese girl was
resistant to the main drug that's being stockpiled in case of a pandemic, a
sign that it's important to keep a second drug on hand as well, a researcher
said Friday.
He said the finding was no reason to panic.
The drug in question, Tamiflu, still attacks "the vast majority of the
viruses out there," said Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo and
the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The drug, produced by Swiss-based Roche
Holding AG, is in short supply as nations around the world try to stock up
on it in case of a global flu pandemic.
Kawaoka said the case of resistance in the 14-year-old girl is "only one
case, and whether that condition was something unique we don't know."
He also said it's not surprising to see some resistance to Tamiflu in
treated individuals, because resistance has also been seen with human flu.
In lab tests, the girl's Tamiflu-resistant virus was susceptible to another
drug, Relenza, which is made by GlaxoSmithKline.
Kawaoka and colleagues report the case in the Oct. 20 issue of the journal
Nature, which released the study Friday. The researchers conclude that it
might be useful to stockpile Relenza as well as Tamiflu.
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