A CONSIGNMENT of antiviral drugs bought by the Government for £186 million to protect the public against a bird flu pandemic could be rendered useless after the emergence of a resistant strain of the virus.

Experts in Hong Kong gave warning yesterday that the human H5N1 virus which surfaced in northern Vietnam this year was showing resistance to Tamiflu, the drug widely considered the best chance of protecting the population.

In March this year the Department of Health agreed the multimillion-pound deal for 14.6 million courses of Tamiflu, which it is stockpiling as a precaution against the disease.

The speed with which the flu virus mutates make it very difficult to prepare a vaccine in advance, but the authorities had hoped that the antiviral would act as a stopgap measure, limiting the flu’s severity and the death count until a vaccine could be developed.

Health protection experts said last night that the report of Tamifluresistance was awaited and would be studied closely to improve “preparedness strategies” in Britain.

The identification of the resistant strain comes amid growing fears of the possible impact of the H5N1 virus. Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said yesterday that it was a “biological inevitability” that the expected pandemic would seriously affect the health of people in this country. Professor Donaldson said that contingency plans were looking at 50,000 deaths in Britain.

The warning came 24 hours after David Nabarro, head of the World Health Organisation’s flu taskforce, predicted that such an outbreak could kill between 5 million and 150 million people.

More than 100 human beings have developed avain flu in South East Asia, mostly in Vietnam, over the past two years, of whom 64 have died. The disease is believed to have been transmitted through the droppings or saliva of sick birds.

Describing the case of Tamiflu-resistance, William Chui, of the Department of Pharmacology at the Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, yesterday urged drug manufacturers to make more effective versions of Relenza, another antiviral also known to be effective in battling H5N1.

“There are now resistant H5N1 strains appearing, and we can’t totally rely on one drug [Tamiflu],” Professor Chui said, adding that general viral resistance to Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, was also thought to be growing in Japan.

The UK Department of Health said that the most effective medication would not been known until the pandemic arrived, because the virus mutates so frequently. Evidence showed that Tamiflu was an effective option.

“Until we get the virus you cannot know. We are also considering many other counter-measures and we are constantly assessing what else we can do to protect the public as far as possible.”

Professor Donaldson added that while Tamiflu was not ideal, it was an important weapon. The worst flu pandemic, which broke out in 1918, killed more than 40 million people.

“It’s inevitable that when the flu pandemic comes, and we don’t know whether that will be next winter or even in five or ten years’ time, that it will have a very serious impact on the health of our country,” he said. “Tamiflu won’t eliminate the problem for people who get it, but it should reduce the severity of their attack and it should prevent many people from dying.”

Scientists said in The Lancet that flu drug resistance in general had increased by 12 per cent in the past decade. In places such as China, drug resistance exceeded 70 per cent, suggesting that drugs such as amantadine and rimantadine will probably no longer be effective for treatment or as a preventive.

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