Tamiflu Orders Have All Been Met

Roche said that they will be stockpiling Tamiflu themselves...

The drug company Roche that developed and now manufacturers the world famous flu drug Tamiflu is claiming that they have met all future orders for their medication and that they are even having to cut back supply now. If this is true then this is a great credit to the Roche drug company as when the first H5N1 bird flu scares emerged and it was made known that the most effective drug to cure yourself from bird influenza was the Tamiflu drug, the demand for the drug far far exceeded supply.

In order to meet this huge surge in demand Roche decided to license out the drug to companies worldwide to help them with the manufacture of Tamiflu. Tamiflu is not an easy drug to make and its main and most important ingredient which is called shikmic acid, comes from the star anise plant which is only found in certain inaccessible parts of the world. By involving other drug companies the supply of Tamiflu was increased tenfold and hundreds of orders for the drug from government health authorities all over the world were fulfilled. Today Roche can produce over 400 million Tamiflu treatments annually.

Roche said that they will be stockpiling Tamiflu themselves just in case urgent supplies are needed in some part of the world. Roche have already given thousands and thousands of Tamiflu treatments to the World Health Organisation along with a promise to immediately help in areas which suddenly suffer from bird flu pandemics.

At present it does not appear that the H5N1 bird flu virus has evolved into a form which is contagious between humans, nevertheless some humans have caught the virus from very close contact with birds and it is likely that sometime in the future the H5N1 virus will mutate into a dangerous human form.