Police in the Chinese city of Shanghai have just caught 13 people who were supposedly making a fake version of the bird flu drug Tamiflu according to the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. Reports coming into the Ukmedix newsroom show that around 400 kilos of the Tamiflu had already been made and this translates roughly into 5,000 Tamiflu tablets which would sell for a large sum to unsuspecting customers and frightened individuals worried about a bird flu pandemic.

The panic buying of Tamiflu has created an opportunity for criminals who sell the Tamiflu on the street and often charge high prices for what is probably a sugar or a cement pill. Part of the reason for the shortage of Tamiflu is that its active compound called shikmic acid is very difficult to extract from the star anise tree and therefore it takes time to produce. Roche the drug company that makes Tamiflu is still not able to keep up with demand despite efforts to do so by giving out licences to other companies to help produce it. In fact 2 Chinese drug companies have been awarded licences to make the Tamiflu drug and they are Shanghai Pharmaceuticals and the HEC Group.

The making of fake Tamiflu must be one of the most dispicable crimes as unlike the production of fake Viagra the patient is likely to die as a result of the fake medicine. The authorities in Shanghai are going to have the problem of trying to find out who bought all the already produced Tamiflu pills and preventing them from using them. The Far East has been the worst hit area of the world for bird flu and alot of the Tamiflu produced by Roche has made its way down to that part of the world.