The predecessor of Tamiflu the flu drug was Amantadine which was invented over 30 years ago for the treatment of regular flu may become used concurrently with Tamiflu for attacks of bird flu. At first when Amantadine was used in bird flu patients it had little or no effect on the virus, however some scientists say that there could be a use for the drug as amantadine showed some results with some of the 130 varients of the bird flu H5N1 virus that exist.

The WHO based in Geneva said that some H5N1 bird flu strains, like those from Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam do not react to Amantadine but other like those from Indonesia, Turkey and China seem to be effected by the drug.

WHO recommendations at present say that Tamiflu should be stocked up by governments to safeguard against a pandemic breaking out, however some of the WHO scientists are saying now that Amantadine and another older flu drug called rimantadine may also have some benefit and are much cheaper to produce than Tamiflu.

Tamiflu is made by Roche and the demand has easily uotstripped the supply. Roche has given licences to many different drug manufacturers to try to boost the supply but is still falling behind in the near future. The use of Amantadine to treat certain bird flu strains could ease the pressure on the reliance on Tamiflu.