November 24, 2005

 

Japan's local governments' Tamiflu stockpiles below target

 

 

Japan's local governments have stockpiled only a fraction of the drug Tamiflu that the country's Health Ministry said was necessary to combat a possible bird flu epidemic among humans, a leading newspaper reported Thursday.

 

The Asahi Shimbun found that current stockpiles of the antiviral drug held by 41 of the country's 47 prefectures were sufficient for approximately 37,400 people - amounting to just 0.4 percent of what the Health Ministry has recommended.

 

The newspaper report was based on interviews conducted with officials overseeing local anti-bird flu efforts.

 

The ministry's bird flu action plan unveiled Nov 15 called for prefectures to be able to treat 10.5 million people against the disease.

 

Five prefectures reported no stockpiles at all, the newspaper said, while a sixth - south-western Miyazaki - did not make its information public.

 

The Asahi report came days after the Mainichi newspaper also reported shortfalls in Japan's Tamiflu supplies. Based on its own survey, the newspaper said earlier this week that the country had only enough of the antiviral drug to treat 15,800 patients.

 

The Health Ministry's action plan called for creating a Tamiflu stockpile for approximately 25 million people over the next five years.

 

Local officials cited cost issues as one reason for the small stockpiles, the Asahi said, echoing a similar assessment offered in the Mainichi article.

 

The Asahi said that, based on a price of JPY364 (approximately US$3.07) a capsule, local governments would have to contribute about JPY38.2 billion to build up a supply sufficient to meet the 10.5 million-person target.

 

"The country (central government) should be doing the stockpiling," the paper quoted an unnamed official from south-western Kochi prefecture as saying.

 

Bird flu hit Japan last year for the first time in decades. There have been several outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain among birds in the country and one confirmed human case, but no human deaths have been reported. Hundreds of thousands of birds have been culled.

 

Most human victims of bird flu are believed to have contracted the disease from sick birds. However, experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between people, possibly sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.