avian flu is a economical problem at the moment. Company's in infected area's can't sell the chickens and stuff. Infectious rate from animal to people are very low, you almost have to do it with a chicken to get it.

If might mutate in to strain that will be transmittet from human to human or it might not. We don't know, but that risk has been here all the time. The media is just giving a lot more attention to it.

Vacins against a human to human strain of H5N1 are not availible for a very simple reason, there is not human to human strain of H5N1 yet and you can not predict how virusses mutate.

Tamiflu is a drugs that hopefully will reduce the spread of the virus inside your body, so your own body will have enough strenght left to fight it off. But that what we hope, but the virus can easily mutate in a diffrent way.

Welcome to the forum. I have a few questions about the Tamiflu purchase:

1) I thought it was available only through a prescription. Did you find a doctor who would write that large of a purchase?
2) Where was the seller located and where did they get the Tamiflu? I'm concerned about some of the internet sellers of prescription drugs (and others) substituting cheap knock-offs, or even worse, useless placebos.
3) What is the expiration date and how to you plan to safely store it?

I think that it is probably premature to load up on that much for the cost, since it is only a treatment and not a vaccine.

- Brian

Roche's data on tamiflu is pretty clear- the senspension is only good good for about ten days and MUST refrigerated. The tablets require storage at 25C (77F) with limited variation, and that it shouldn't go below 15C (60F) or above 30C (89F). I haven't found out what happens if it gets too warm, but I doubt that it's good for the effectiveness of the drug.

Every so often, you used to hear horror storied about improperly stored meds that had soured and gone toxic. I've never found any first or second hand accounts of this, it's always been "friend of a buddy" war stories. But they are worth keeping in mind.

That's part of why I hammer people who stash meds. They don't have a suitable facilty, much less the training, as a rule.

Thanks for the info Raven!

I agree with you about hoarding meds by the untrained. It seems to be an opportunity to become seriously ill by spoiled/expired drugs.

I try to keep an extra week of my prescription meds (rotated each month when I renew). It's only to cover me if I forget to pick them up, get hit by the annual Dallas-Ft. Worth ice storm or the pharmacy supplies have run out. Each month I set aside a few extra tablets in order to build up a two-week reserve.

I forgot that Tamiflu can be used prophylactically, although it's unclear if it helps for preventing H5N1 infections. Currently, the prophylactic dose is once per day for up to six weeks, so 120 doses would be enough for three maximum-period prophylactic courses. Well, you could take it longer, but no one's studied it carefully past six weeks yet.

But that's just based on using Tamiflu with normal flu. All the rules could go out the window with the next real pandemic flu virus.

Arney,

I didn't know that it could be used for preventive purposes. Still, don't you think that the flu virus mutates too often to make Tamiflu to keep from getting infected? Overuse also might allow the virus to mutate into a Tamiflu-resistant version, much like bacteria.

Tamiflu is already given to people like poultry workers who have to destory infected chicken flocks or health care workers (if they can afford it, that is). There's still no good evidence on whether it's actually protecting them yet since transmission is still rare anyway.

Hypothetically speaking, if H5N1 went pandemic, I'm sure that it would develop resistance to Tamiflu fairly quickly. And the more people who took it, the faster it would happen because the more the virus would be exposed to it. It's the same argument people make about overusing antibiotics, but influenza virus can mutate much faster and more radically than most bacteria.

I would add that the possibility that a flu strain can quickly develop resistance wouldn't necessarily be an argument for not stocking Tamiflu, at least at the community level. You can still potentially save a lot of lives before resistance develops. Then again, considering how much it costs, maybe ensuring more basic preparedness would be better money spent. <shrug>

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