The Swiss government with the efficiency that they are so famous for are not just prepared to have a stockpile of Tamiflu for use if a bird flu pandemic strikes in the nation but they also want to have a pre-pandemic stock of medicines to bolster the Swiss people’s chances of recovering from a bout of the H5N1 virus. The overall plan is to vaccinate the complete Swiss population in the event of the deadly bird flu virus taking hold.

The health authorities in Switzerland have been busy with their plans recently and are probably one of the best-prepared countries in the world but they said that they wanted to do more. In Switzerland there are 2 million doses of the bird flu drug Tamiflu and now the Swiss are buying 150 million dollars worth of Relenza and other bird flu drugs to be even more safe after the House of Representatives gave the green light for 75 million Swiss Francs to be spent on vaccines.

Relenza that is made by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline is touted as a good back up drug to the Tamiflu drug. Many scientists are not 100% sure if the Tamiflu drug will be 100% effective in the event of an outbreak and therefore recommend that a back up drug that attacks the H5N1 virus in a different way can be helpful too.

The Swiss have set up a Federal Vaccination Commission that stated that Relenza was a ‘new weapon’ against the threats of a bird flu pandemic. Until an outbreak occurs it will be very problematic for scientists to come up with a foolproof vaccine for the virus and in the intervening months the world will have to rely on Tamiflu, Relenza and sensible and practical measures to stop the spread of the disease.