Government denies bird flu stockpile u-turn

The Government has denied a u-turn after saying it wants drug companies to stockpile up to a year's extra supply of some antibiotics, which would be used to bolster the arsenal against a potential bird flu pandemic.

Government drug-buyer Pharmac is asking companies to bid on providing a "guaranteed supply" of 1.18 million doses of antibiotics. Two-thirds would be tablets or in liquid form, the rest injectable.

It wants companies to hold between three and 12 months' extra supplies of the 10 formulations it is seeking.

National health spokesman Tony Ryall said stockpiling antibiotics was a u-turn by the Government that fulfilled what National had been urging, but which was dismissed by Health Minister Pete in Parliament last month.

Mr Hodgson denied it was a u-turn.

"Many antibiotics have shorter expiry dates so stockpiling them under lock and key - as we do with Tamiflu - just runs the risk that they will be wasted," he said.

Pharmac wanted more antibiotics to be available. If a pandemic did not occur next year, the drugs would be released for use. By contrast, the Tamiflu would remain in secure confinement.

Mr Ryall is urging the Government to increase stocks of many other drugs, such as warfarin and insulin, which could be harder to obtain because of border closures.

The new drugs are on top of the Government's own supply, held at four undisclosed, secure sites, of about 850,000 courses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. This stockpile, which cost more than $26 million, is enough for a fifth of the population to have one course.

Bird flu has killed about 70 people overseas since late 2003 but it cannot yet easily spread between humans. Virus experts expect that eventually a strain of bird flu will change to do this and sweep round the globe, killing millions.

They do not know when, but say the risks are increasing as the current virus spreads among birds worldwide.

"Securing a supply of antibiotics will be an important part of our readiness for a potential pandemic," Mr Hodgson said in announcing the Pharmac move.

But because of uncertainties over when a pandemic might occur, Pharmac was trying to address various scenarios, he said.

It thinks it will have to pay up to $10 million for the supply deal or deals - for drugs that at today's prices would cost about $4.5 million.

A Pharmac spokesman said the difference was to cover the companies' storage costs and possible extra packaging costs - Pharmac wants the drugs put into individual patient packs because of the likely shortage of health workers to do this during a pandemic.

Safety first

* Pharmac wants a guaranteed supply of antibiotics because in the 1918 influenza pandemic most deaths were caused by secondary bacterial infections rather than by the flu virus itself.

* It wants companies that bid to supply the antibiotics to consider how to manage them, so that the guaranteed supply is always within the expiry date.