GENEVA - The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed on Saturday that it had requested Swiss drug manufacturer Roche to be ready to ship out Tamiflu to Indonesia, but had not yet asked the company to being sending out the doses.
"Whenever there is a cluster, we contact Roche just to let them know that if we need to send the stockpile that they should be ready to do so," said WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng. "We have not asked that anything be sent, and nothing from Roche has been sent." Ms Cheng said that it was standard procedure to ask the company to be prepared whenever any cluster infections were detected.
Around 9,500 treatment doses, along with protective gear were brought into Indonesia yesterday, but no follow-up shipments have been planned. Jules Pieters, director of WHO's rapid response team said that the emergency 3 million doses are kept ready to be shipped into any part of the world when needed. "We were quite keen to inform Roche quite timely," Pieters said. "We knew Thursday would be a holiday in Europe and wanted to make sure Roche warehouses would be open."
Roche spokesman Baschi Duerr said his company was in close communication with the WHO, "We are in very close contact with WHO, even today, and our readiness is geared to be able to deliver," Duerr added. "We are ready to fly it wherever and whenever it's needed."
Bird flu has infected about 48 people in Indonesia of which 36 have died. A cluster infection involving seven family members triggered panic that the H5N1 virus has mutated into a form that is easily transmissible between humans. But the WHO has been unable to confirm this.
